


Above the Water

by Kingmaking



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: AU - Canon Divergence, Angst, Arranged Marriage, Canon-Typical Underage, Canon-Typical Violence, Childbirth, Dragonstone, F/M, Female Friendship, Gen, Grief, House Baratheon, Parenthood, References to Depression, Slow Burn, Westeros Politics, everyone is trying, poor decision-making
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2019-07-18 14:46:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 12
Words: 32,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16120685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kingmaking/pseuds/Kingmaking
Summary: Selyse would have loved him, no doubt, loved the silence and the square jaw, the sharp eyes and the unsmiling face. Delena has been advised to observe him, learn him as one might learn a song, but he gives away very little. They share a cup of spiced Arbor wine from which he takes a single, perfunctory sip.Perfunctory; that is the word. Everything about Stannis Baratheon is perfunctory, the result of habit rather than want or need.Common ground is rare between Stannis and Delena, wed in great haste following an unexpected death. But a threat much greater than a lack of warmth is looming.





	1. Wasted Time

**Author's Note:**

> 31/12 Now packaged and marketed with this edit I made ages back ([x](https://i.imgur.com/G0MunsX.jpg))
> 
> This AU explores what happens after Stannis is asked(?) to marry Delena following Selyse's death.  
>  For better or worse. 

Two days east of Brightwater Keep, where Stannis is to meet his Florent bride, riders bearing the fox of Lord Alester’s sigil find the royal party. Leading them is Ser Colin, the lord’s youngest brother, asking to meet with the King, bringing news of a most urgent matter. _Indisposed_ , Ser Barristan says to him, but truth is Robert has gone whoring somewhere on the shores of the Honeywine, dragging along the Kingslayer, that he might stand watch and hear as the King shames his sister with common wenches.

The news, instead, is thus delivered to Stannis, in Robert’s tent, as Ser Colin is served Robert’s wine: "The young Lady Selyse is dead, my lord."

Stannis’s betrothed, the one he’s never met, nor seen, nor heard. A ghost on paper, letters sent between Lord Florent and Jon Arryn, the Lord Hand. A year of talking, followed by a year of betrothal, while Stannis worked on the decrepit castles and towers of Dragonstone, the rotten gift he’s gotten from Robert instead of Storm’s End.

Dead. How?

Ser Colin has little to say on the matter, even after the King returns, a blank-faced Jaime Lannister in tow. A fever, sudden enough that Lady Selyse hadn’t truly known she was dying until she was dead. Florent, smiling, names it a mercy from the Seven; Stannis names it a sign that the Seven cared naught for the girl, and naught for her family.

Robert is bitter. "A month of bloody travel for a dead girl."

The girl wasn’t dead a month ago, Stannis would say to him, but the King is already smelling of wine, sweat and fast anger. And he knows Robert would blame Lord Florent anyway, for, as he’d put it, wasting his bloody time. _You got to bed some Reach whores, Robert, how could you say it was time wasted?_

But, Ser Colin softly declares, there is another Florent girl.

"I have a daughter myself, Your Grace, if my lord Stannis would have it."

 _Opportunistic man_. But one look at Robert, with his uninterested, get-it-over-with look, gives Stannis his answer. And thus, his dead Florent bride is replaced with a living one.

 

**-*-**

 

Robert's command had been thus: a girl from the Reach. Any wench from any house, he'd told Stannis, long as it pleased the Lord of Highgarden.

Mace Tyrell.

It was Stannis's duty to placate Mace Tyrell, the man who'd feasted within sight of Storm's End while he and Renly starved, while he and Renly ate horses and vermin, while he and Renly had almost been reduced to cooking and eating the dead.

Mace Tyrell, who'd flown Targaryen banners, had to be appeased. Robert had even offered Stannis his pick of the man's sisters -- Lanna? he'd wondered; Sharra, Dina? --, until Jon Arryn had reminded him that Mina and Janna Tyrell were both wed, one to a Redwyne cousin and the other to a Jon of her own, head of the green Fossoways. Robert had shrugged.

Any bloody Reachwoman. Jon Arryn’s mouth had been pressed into a thin line, as he offered a few names. Lord Hightower had four unwed daughters; wealthy Rowan had one, as did Costayne and Crane, Serry and Beesbury, Bulwer and Cordwayner.

Tyrell creatures, the lot of them. Stannis wouldn’t take for his wife the daughter, sister, cousin of a lord who’d meant to starve him out, not a year past. Surely Tywin Lannister had some more kin up his sleeve; surely a girl from around the River Trident would do, surely a Dornish vassal would do more to secure the peace.

That, or she’d murder him in his sleep.

Any Reachwoman, his brother and King had commanded of him. And so, in the end, Stannis had picked a Florent. The slight had been entirely lost on Robert, of course it’d been, although not on the Lord Hand. Jon Arryn had frowned.

"There isn’t much love between House Tyrell and the Brightwater, my lord."

"Indeed, my lord Hand. I would say there is none."

Robert had cared nothing for it. The lack of love between Tyrell and Florent, that is; he’d taken some measure of interest in the Florent women: "I don’t remember ever meeting a Florent girl."

Testament of a lady’s good character. Jon Arryn had shared with them his knowledge of Reach genealogy: "Lord Florent has two daughters of his own," he’d began. Stannis knew this already -- they’d wed Tyrell creatures. "One is Lady Tarly, the other Lady Hightower." But the lord had two younger brothers, who each produced one daughter. The elder had a Florent cousin for a mother; the younger, a Wythers.

The squirrel.

"I care naught for the mothers," Robert interrupted. "Write Alester Florent, Jon. Write that his King summons him; write that he’s to bring whichever girl he deems the prettiest. Look, Stannis! I want the very best for you."

 _Liar_. The very best had been given to Renly; to Stannis, Robert had given Dragonstone, nearly destroyed by war and storm. He cared nothing for a pretty bride. What good was a wife, if the sons he got from her stood to inherit nothing but stone and smoke? What good was Storm’s End, if granted to a boy of six?

Jon Arryn had interjected. "I reckon the younger girl is only twelve years old, Your Grace."

"Then write to Alester Florent with news of her betrothal," Stannis had declared, before Robert could so much as open his mouth, "with the promise of a marriage in two years’s time. I would hate for my bride to behold Dragonstone in such a state, brother. Or King’s Landing, for that matter. What’s more to it, I would hate to have a son before you do."

On the contrary, he would’ve loved it. A son by a Swann or a Wylde, though, not the byproduct of Robert’s diplomatic overtures. Or rather, Jon Arryn’s. None of this was Robert’s work. The peace with Dorne, the arrogant Lannister queen, his brother owed it entirely to his Lord Hand.

"You can have your two years," Robert'd spat, "but you’re taking the older girl. House Florent would feel slighted, otherwise. Now wouldn’t they, Jon?" Robert had to win, of course; his brother always had to win, had to have the last word.

"Yes. You must be right, Robert. As the elder brother should always come before the younger, I assume the same must apply to cousins."

It was no use; he'd lost Robert's interest soon as the Florent matter had been settled. It happened every time he brought up Storm’s End; it happened every time he told his brother something he didn’t want to hear, like the sheer cost of the new Royal Fleet, or how King’s Landing what filled with only Lannister creatures, or how those men that had fought under House Targaryen’s banners during the war could not and should not be trusted, the likes of Tyrell and Martell, or every Crownlord.

No use.


	2. Lady Lena

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 31/12 Shhh ignore this It's just me re-ordering chapters

A letter, dated 287 AC. Written in Lady Delena’s hand  
Never sent

 _Lord Stannis_  
_Lord Husband,_  
_I have never told you this,_ _because you never asked-_  
_I’ve never told you this, but Selyse and I were close as sisters. I presumed you wouldn’t understand: you do not love your brothers. We had only just met, you and I. I didn’t want to bother you with girlish-_  
_My uncle thought us similar. Interchangeable. It never occurred to him that you might refuse me. You'd asked for a Florent girl; you were getting a Florent girl._  
_I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you_  
_I hate your brother and his wife. I've caught him looking at me. I put in two inches at the neckline of every gown I own after we moved to King's Landing, did you know that? Did you even notice? Of course not. Stannis Baratheon isn't one to look at cleavages; Stannis Baratheon has scarcely ever looked at his wife_  
_I hate you I hate you I hate you_  
_There are days where I can't stop crying. I think it's because Ely knew they would have me replace her, and with her dying breath, she cursed me. She wanted you so much; she wanted to be Lady Baratheon, she wanted to be someone. Now she's a Lady of nothing, in the-_  
_I think it's because I know you can never love me, nor_ I you  
_I think I might be pregnant_

Discarded before the ink could dry

 

**-*-**

 

Stannis expected the Florent household to be miserable, deep in mourning for the Lady Selyse; it’s not. Lady Melara welcomes them, dressed in the bright colours of her family, red-cheeked as she bows to King Robert and introduces her daughters, her son, and those among her grandchildren who've been deemed old enough to make the journey; two Hightowers, the Lord's youngest sons, and Lord Tarly's plump little boy, hiding behind his mother's green skirt.

Robert has gone in search of food and wine; Stannis has stayed in the yard, feeling imaginary mud soak through his shoes. They’re to stay here for a fortnight of feasting and dancing, with the wedding itself in the middle; how is he to survive this place for so long? Lord Florent has decided to feast rather than mourn. Had Selyse been held in such little regard, while she lived? What of his new bride, Delena?

Despise it or not, Stannis misses Dragonstone, the calm and silence. There’s always work to be done, something to be fixed, planned, seen through; this journey south, this royal parade, is productivity’s very opposite.

Lady Florent smiles at him, her daughters standing at her side, each a very picture of the other. Florent says: "We’ve had chambers prepared for you, my lord, in the warmest part of the keep. Melessa and I were just talking about it; after such a long time in dreary Storm’s End and cold Dragonstone, you must long for summer to return."

Melessa, now the Lady Tarly, wife to Mace Tyrell’s best general. What had she been up to, Stannis wonders, alone in the Reach while Lord Randyll starved him out at Storm’s End? Giving the man a brood of children, it appeared. The boy Samwell can’t be older than four; Stannis knows of a number of daughters, back at Hornhill, and Lady Melessa is pregnant. The woman has the decency to keep her face blank and her eyes low, while her mother rambles about warmth.

Lady Rhea doesn’t, positively beaming at him. "My lord must be excited to meet his betrothed."

"She isn’t my betrothed. My betrothed was the Lady Selyse, your other cousin. Have you forgotten her already?" What might be annoyance crosses Lady Rhea’s features. Stannis hears laughter, coming from somewhere else in the Keep, and decides to let it go. "Where is the girl?"

He’s asked without thinking, meaning Selyse and Delena in equal measures; Lady Florent chooses the latter. "In the sept with her brother Omer, my lord. The boy has returned to us from the Citadel, specially for your wedding. And, my lord, please: our Lena is a woman grown."

Born seven years after him, sixteen years old as of the last moon. _A girl_. On cue, Lady Rhea says: "At her age, I’d already birthed my boys."

A memory comes to Stannis’s mind, from before the war, talk of how the shrewd Lord Florent had sent his daughter, a girl of twelve, down to Oldtown, to marry the widowed Lord Hightower. Maybe she’d always been this willowy; maybe she’d always been this shrewd, just like her father, searching for weaknesses in the lines of Stannis’s face. A woman, indeed.

"Woman grown or not, I would like to meet her."

"But of course," says Lady Melara, before patting Lady Rhea’s arm, saying: "Darling, if you would."

Darling spares him a glance, like a master checking on a dog, before heading down a maze of corridors. Brightwater Keep is a testament of House Florent’s expensive taste; Stannis pictures it stripped bare, after nigh a year without contact with the outside world, the cold stones clawed at, the horses eaten.

Stannis and the Lady Rhea stop in front of the sept’s doors. The woman’s smile is a bit dimmer. Reverence for the Seven, maybe?

Doubtful, somehow.

She opens the door without knocking, takes a look inside. It’s dark, in the sept; Stannis can spot candles burning, windows that cast green, red, golden hues around the room, and little else. One might hear a pin drop, until Rhea’s command echoes in the sept: "Omer! Come here, sweetheart. Delena's _betrothed_ has arrived."

Fabric ruffles, feet hit the floor, until a boy no older than fourteen appears. Brown-haired and brown-eyed, with freckles and crooked teeth, dressed in the grey of a Citadel apprentice even here. Omer Florent acknowledges Stannis, gives a nod, bows.

"Good morning to you, Lord Stannis."

"Have you spent the morning in prayers, cousin?"

"Lena has. The usual." Is she very devout, the Lady Delena? It’s not something he’d considered, that his lack of love or care for the Seven might become a problem in his marriage. Omer gives him another nod. "My sister is very eager to meet you, my lord. She’s been worrying about which gown to wear for days, and then..."

Lady Rhea makes a sound akin to a cat hissing. "We shouldn’t keep Lord Stannis any longer, cousin. Why don’t you go back to my father? I’m sure His Lordship and Maester Edmyn can find something for you to do." Another nod, another bow, followed with an escape down the corridor they’ve come from. The lady turns, gives him a look, then: "This is the place. Please, go on inside. Allow me to stand watch outside the doors; I’d hate for anyone to suspect your first meeting with your intended was, how should we say, inappropriate."

Before Stannis can say that his intended is dead in the ground, replaced with a younger cousin, Lady Rhea urges him forward with a bright smile. He catches himself wondering about Lady Delena’s teeth, reaches the conclusion that whatever they might be like matters very little to him.

Delena has spent the morning in prayers, according to Omer, but when Stannis first sees her, she’s looking out a window, the vivid illustrations casting a warm glow on her figure. He first notices the gown, in Florent blue, one hand worrying at the jeweled cord of a leather belt. She could be mistaken for the Lady Rhea, from behind, with her brown hair and her slender neck, although she’s a few inches shorter, rounder of shoulders. And half-deaf, one might say, after Stannis clears his throat and she doesn’t turn around.

"Lady Delena. I am Stannis Baratheon."

She’s touching the window just as he says his name; one, maybe both of these, startles her. "I asked Rhea to warn me before I was to meet you, but of course she didn’t. I thought spending time around Baelor the Brightsmile would make her kinder, but it hasn’t. Brightbitch, they should name her."

Delena’s spoken fast enough that he can hardly make sense of it. More importantly, sometime during the rant, she’s turned away from the window, to face him, and Stannis realizes he doesn’t know whether or not she’s beautiful. He takes in the brown, watery eyes, an upturned nose, a narrow chin and freckles, like the boy Omer. And the Florent ears, the ones Robert has spent a whole month of travel making fun of, sticking out from among waves of brown hair -- which has a warmer shade than Rhea’s, Stannis realizes, darker and redder. It’s not the red glow of the sept; as she makes a few, hesitant paces forward, as she comes into the light pouring in from the corridor, Stannis decides the girl has much in common with the fox of House Florent’s sigil.

He catches himself both wishing for and dreading the shrewd mind, or Lady Rhea’s sharp tongue.

"I’m glad you had an easy time on the road, my lord," Delena says. She hasn’t asked if he did; Stannis doesn’t correct her. He watches her face for any trace of disappointment, but cannot find any. Before silence can settle in, Delena takes in a deep breath and says: "My Aunt Melara says it’s a good thing Selyse was dead before you arrived, my lord. Says you might’ve caught whatever it was that killed her and then been killed yourself. Then Casterly Rock would’ve hated us for killing His Majesty’s brother."

His Majesty wouldn’t care if Stannis’s horse trampled him to death; Cersei Lannister wouldn’t even notice. Again, he doesn’t correct her. This would be over soon; he’d wed and bed a Reachwoman, like Robert had asked of him, and return to King’s Landing, where he could feel useful.


	3. Nor I You

Her disenchantment is a fast thing.

It’s the guilt of having taken Selyse’s place, Delena knows, that darkens her mood and sours the joy of her wedding feast -- a feast just for her! --, the pride of becoming good-sister to His Grace, the lady of a great house. It’s how uninterested in her Lord Stannis is, even during the feast. Oh, he does everything correctly, there’s no doubt about it; he says everything properly during the ceremony, kisses her chastely, drapes a cloak of dark gold around her shoulders, but… She doesn’t know what’s missing, exactly, but something is.

He isn’t like a great knight from a story; he’s solemn and silent, blank-faced, mouth pressed in a thin line even as King Robert jokes, and the crowd laughs. The younger brother, so unlike the elder; it makes her think of gentle Melessa and bold Rhea, of Selyse and herself, with Delena ever-bubbling with excitement and Selyse... dead.

Selyse would have loved him, no doubt, loved the silence and the square jaw, the sharp eyes and the unsmiling face. He’s so much like she was, with his few likes and many dislikes. Delena has been advised to observe him, learn him as one might learn a song, but he gives away very little, her Lord husband. They share a cup of spiced Arbor wine from which he takes a single, perfunctory sip.

Perfunctory; that is the word. Everything about Stannis Baratheon is perfunctory, the result of habit rather than want or need. Aunt Melara’s eyes scarcely leave them, during the feast, and Delena wonders if the woman is pleased with her, or not. _This is a great opportunity for House Florent_ , she’s told Delena. It’s not just for _her_ ; it’s for the good of the family. And had Selyse lived…, it would’ve been her sitting here. Delena is but the daughter of a fourth son. _Baratheon_ …

And now… _Lord Stannis might be king someday_ , Rhea’s told her, speaking treason. Stannis won’t be king long as Robert lives; Stannis won’t be king long as little Prince Joffrey lives, and there’s plenty of time for Queen Cersei to have more sons, once the King reunites with her in the Capital.

(It’s such an easy thing, for Delena to ignore how the King has been grabbing at serving wenches throughout her wedding feast, how those Baratheon eyes, like the Reach sky or the waters of the Honeywine, keep coming back on her, dragging over her chest, her blushing throat, her unbound hair. She tightens her new Baratheon cloak around her shoulders, without noticing; she inches a bit closer to Lord Stannis.

Robert Baratheon plays the part of the perfect king rather aptly… so long as his mouth is closed.)  

They speak very little, she and Stannis, nodding and smiling -- or, at least, Delena smiles. He dances with her, at least, spinning her around with no real grace, until her uncle has the bedding called. Stannis tenses at her side, before a swarm of relatives and red-cheeked neighbors surround them, Rhea leading the women that drag him away. Above the clamor, Delena can hear Stannis calling for King Robert, something like: _You’d promised me!_

The King isn’t listening to his brother, though; he’s at Delena’s side in an instant, broad-shouldered and smiling bright, lifting her from the ground as two dozens of men fight to get close. Her shoes are removed, the pins that hold Delena’s hair together are torn away, the Baratheon cloak disappears underfoot, until she can feel the cool air on her shoulders, on her neck and down her back, with only her shift left to her. From the corner of her eye, Delena sees her cousin Alekyne nod, smile; pride? Is this what she was expected to do?

Maybe. It’s what Aunt Melara had told her the bedding ceremony would be like.

 _I did nothing_ \-- the men stripped her down, the way the women must’ve done with Stannis. Rhea had called the bedding ceremony _fun_ ; Melessa had sighed, then smiled, told Delena that it would be worth it, once she had children. Delena isn’t sure that pregnancy and motherhood could make her forget the unpleasant feeling of an unwanted hand on her skin, but Melessa is older. Wiser.

The King is roaring with laughter, when Delena’s feet touch ground again. They’re at the door of Rhea’s old room, because Delena’s own room is the room she used to share with Selyse, the room her cousin sickened and died in. It wouldn’t do, to lose her maidenhead in that bed. The sheer thought of it makes her nauseous, or maybe that’s only fear, or the desire to be alone.

At the King’s side is an old knight in white, a brother of the Kingsguard, who places a steadying hand on His Majesty’s elbow. The man’s had enough wine to dry out the Arbor, Delena’s sure, watching as his eyes roam over her chest.

He says: "Wasting such a pretty woman on Stannis… Unthinkable, Selmy, it’s unthinkable. Don’t you think?"

The knight gives Delena what might be a sympathetic look, before saying: "It’s time your brother and his lady were left alone, my King."

 

**-*-**

 

They close the door behind Delena and she’s alone, finally -- her Lord Stannis is nowhere to be seen -- in Rhea’s old room, glaring at Rhea’s old bed. It has been prepared for them, with new bedclothes, scrubbed floors and wine on the nearby table, peaches and honeyed cakes. A fire is roaring in the hearth, casting menacing shadows around the room, the sound of crackling wood almost enough to cover the crude japes of King Robert, lurking on the other side of the door.

He’d made such eyes at her, during the feast… But Delena had once heard Rhea say that men found everything to be attractive, once they’d had enough wine. What of it, if he was more handsome than Stannis? Rhea was more beautiful than Melessa, and yet it’s Mel that Delena would rather spend time with, not Rhea. The mood of drinking men often soured. Yet… Stannis hadn’t touched his cup, at the feast, and his mood…

 _Foolish girl_. She can almost hear Aunt Melara mock her, can almost feel the sting of a slap on her ear. The Seven looked down on dreamers, her aunt was always saying, the Seven had no time for young, stupid, childish ones such as Delena. At ten, she’d declared the Sword of the Morning would marry her, Kingsguard or not. The man was dead, now, as was that little girl. What had been done to her?

From behind the door come the giggles of women, King Robert’s laughter. Delena tenses and, without really meaning to, moves as far away from the door as she possibly can, past the wine and the peaches, without a look at the food. She isn’t hungry; in fact, she might throw her extravagant wedding feast up here and then, on the furs. The women leave, twenty feet on the wooden floors, like mice. She expected the door to open, Lord Stannis to come here, the bedding proper to begin; it doesn’t, he doesn’t. Instead, she hears yelling, the angry kind. Robert.

"Crone’s dry cunt, Stannis! Bloody Alester Florent wanted a feast, I’ve given him one!"

"You’d promised me the girl and I would be spared the indignity of the bedding ceremony! I am your brother, Robert, how could you shame us so!" _The girl_. Not Delena, not my wife, not my lady. _The girl_. "Of course, I should have known better. Why trust you with my honor?"

"Oh, keep it shut, would you? I wanted a peek, I got a peek."

A shove, a shout, the sound of steel. Delena hears Ser Barristan, calm as the waters of a lake: "Mind yourself, Lord Stannis. The Lady Delena is already in the room. You have matters to attend to… As do you, My Grace." An indulgent father, trying his best to drag his belligerent son away from a fight. "You were drinking with Lord Hewett, remember?"

Hewett of the many daughters, yes. He’d offered her brother Omer his pick of the lot, when he was no more than… what, twelve? Omer had chosen the Citadel instead.

The door opens and Lord Stannis is there, red in the face, doublet gone and shirt unbuttoned, collar askew. He seems to need a second to adjust to how bright the room is, with candles by the door, by the windows and by the bed, casting something akin to daylight on them. On Delena, awkward in the middle of the room, with her ears and her freckles, embarrassed by the argument she wasn’t meant to hear.

At least he got to keep most of his clothes on; Delena shivers in her underwear, feeling only the cold on her skin. She has to fight the urge to cover herself with her arms. Stannis isn’t looking at her, though; he goes directly to Rhea’s table, examines the jars, and pours himself a cup of water. "Robert had promised me there would be no bedding," he says, water trickling down his chin as though he’s just ran half a mile, outside.

Maybe he’d been running from Rhea and the other women; Delena wouldn’t blame him for that.

Before she can think better, Delena’s asking: "Is he always like this?"

"Like what, exactly?" Threatening. Demanding. Menacing.

Stannis gives her a look, then; after some time wondering if his dislike for his brother surpasses his dislike of her, she continues: "Rude. Loud." Some thought, a short pause, then: "Immodest."

A shadow crosses Stannis’s features, gone as fast as it came, back to his usual frown. He places his empty cup back and finally turns his body toward her, eyes locked with hers as though glancing below her neck might give him greyscale. Then: "Has the King behaved in an improper manner toward you?"

It’s the same tone a weary father might use to coerce his children into revealing what the others have been up to. Before she can remember that she’s a great lady, now, Delena gives a shrug; Stannis frowns.

To further reassure him, Delena says: "I meant nothing by it, of course. And I… I’m so very excited to journey back to King’s Landing and meet Her Grace the Queen, my lord. I’ve never had a sister of my own. But I’ve heard so much about Queen Cersei and her beauty."

"You told me the Lady Selyse was like a sister to you." He says this like he’s caught her lying; Delena cannot help but feel a pang of shame, herself. "Was that entirely true?"

Strange, that he’s the one asking her this. He and Robert are different as can be, like the sun and the stars, but surely he loves him, yes?

Delena conjures the best memory she has of Ely, and yet… "We… had our differences. She was very diligent and… sensible, not easily swayed by fancy." _She thought I was foolish_ , she doesn’t say, _and would never have bothered you with such girly chatter_.

"Is this what made you different from her? Are you not also diligent, sensible and temperate, my lady?"

 _There is no pleasing this man_ , Delena realizes, her stomach knotting. She won’t argue the matter, not half-naked, not while they’re expected to properly become man and wife, like real people do.

"That is not what I meant, my lord."

"It seems to me you mean little of what you say, wife."

 _Wife_. It’s better than _girl_ ; it also manages to remind Delena of the matter at hand. Rhea’s bed is twice as big as the one she and Ely shared, disappearing under pillows and furs, and it seems to grow bigger every second. Would they inspect the bed, tomorrow morning? Aunt Melara was sure to, shrewd as she was. She couldn’t have Delena cause trouble.

Stannis takes his eyes away from her, focusing on some tapestry depicting foxes trampling a garden of roses, and says nothing when Delena pours herself a cup of wine, downs it, and then has another. She’s never liked wine, in truth, but it’s easy to convince herself that it makes her feel warmer, braver.

Before she has time for a third cup, Stannis turns back to face her, makes a move to grab Delena’s hand with his and then just leaves it there, hanging, then balling into a white-knuckled fist. "We have a duty to perform, my lady."

"Yes. Matters to attend to." She doesn’t realize she’s quoting Ser Barristan until Stannis frowns. "I wasn’t… I wasn’t listening at the door, I swear, but… The King is loud."

A moment. Then: "That he is."

What happens next is much like what Delena expected. She kisses the corner of Stannis’s mouth, lightly; he tenses anyway, placing one hand on her shoulder to keep her away. He doesn’t ask her to remove what’s left of her clothes, nor does he remove his. Delena is grateful for it, although she wonders if they’re headed the right way.

In the end, she’s laying down on Rhea’s bed, slightly more on the left side than in the middle, muscles tight and tightening. She remembers that maybe they should blow the candles only when she’s under the covers, looking at the dust gathering on the canopy. It’s better than looking at Stannis, which she does anyway, watching as he removes his shoes -- they let him keep his shoes; Delena wonders about her slippers, disappeared somewhere. And then he’s on top of her, his knees between her own, one hand gripping the headboard and the other somewhere under the covers, never touching her. No story could have prepared her for this, of course, but it’s Rhea she blames in that instant, and Melessa.

Fun? This isn’t fun.

Stannis takes a deep breath, a minute or so into… whatever he’s up to; Delena takes it as sure enough a sign that she ought to do the same thing and she does, a second before something hot and dry brushes past her thigh and then enters her, unknown and unwelcome, but the unbearable pain she feared doesn’t come. She remembers something about maidenhead and horses, surprisingly. It’s unpleasant, uncomfortable, but her arms stay at her sides and her breathing doesn’t accelerate. This isn’t the disaster she expected.

Stannis is looking at her forehead, some unknown spot between her eyebrows, and together she and him move without grace, without rhythm. She’s moving, because maybe she’s meant to, and… surely there’s more to one’s marriage bed than just lying there. Dry becomes wet, somehow, and she does something unadvised. She touches Stannis’s cheek, brushes her knuckles along his jawline, and might have kissed him, but then he says: "Don’t."

She doesn’t.

Instead, Delena ventures a hand under the covers, between Stannis and herself, to where they’ve almost become one, until she’s touching him. Again, if with labored breathing, he says: " _Don’t_."

She does, and watches as he positively collapses inside and above her.


	4. Strong as Storms

Cersei Lannister is the most beautiful woman Delena has ever seen; it almost makes her feel like crying, sitting in the Queen’s solar with nothing of her own to offer safe for the child in her belly. The Hand of the King’s wife is also here, Lysa Tully with her nervous smiles and heart-shaped face. She’s pregnant herself, and further along than Delena, but much smaller -- and sicker, if gossip inside the Red Keep has the right of it. Delena had been called  _resplendent_ , upon her arrival in King’s Landing, with her clothes of bright Florent colors and the news that, already, dutiful Lord Stannis had fathered a child on her. A wedding night child, a blessing from the Seven; Queen Cersei had kissed her cheek and wished her the best in the world. Lysa Tully had done the same, with a trembling mouth and big, watery eyes.

The best in the world. Delena hadn’t shared with them how Lord Stannis hadn’t visited her bed since the night of the wedding, not even before it’d become clear that she was expecting. She’d made a mistake, thinking it was something they could do together. Aunt Melara and her lord Uncle had been pleased, though, and the King had loudly declared:  _I didn’t think you even had a cock, Stannis!_ When he’d been told, and he’d given her that look, her lord and husband, as though it was somewhat her fault. They’d left the Brightwater and traveled back to King’s Landing, and somewhere along the way the ground had started freezing, and Delena had seen real, actual, fresh snow for the first time. She’d even stuck out her tongue, gathered some flakes in her mouth, giggled like a girl; many had laughed, happily, but not Stannis.

He’d dined with her every night, back in Brightwater Keep, but Delena suspected it was at his brother’s request, or her lord Uncle’s. Those cool blue eyes swept over her and seemed to find her lacking, somehow. Delena had done everything she could think of; she’d worn Baratheon colors, the week after her wedding, bright gold and dark grey, almost black, but dark colours looked positively horrid, on her. She’d washed and brushed her long, heavy tresses of red-brown hair, curled them with her fingers. She’d worn gemstones around her neck, a rare gift from Lady Melara, then none; she’d talked at length about the area surrounding the keep as they ate, then she hadn’t. Nothing she did seemed to please her new husband, and Delena’s hair was flat again when they rode through the Kingswood, branches and clothes heavy with snow.

Never mind him. What mattered is that she now had the Queen’s friendship, and Lady Arryn’s. Both were a few years older than Delena, and the Queen had a little son, and both came from great houses, only to wed into greater ones. But in the Queen’s solar or in the gardens of King’s Landing, or even at dinner with the Court, they were almost equal. She was no longer her uncle Alester’s throwaway niece, nor was she merely the wife of unsmiling, unblinking Stannis, the King’s unfavored brother; she was Delena Baratheon, the Lady of Dragonstone, pretty in pastel shades, in furs or in the deep hues of winter. Never Baratheon black, though.

She was making it work, on her own and without anyone’s help, even as Stannis traveled to Dragonstone and spent most of his time on the island. Delena had been there for only a week, herself, and then asked to return to King’s Landing. The place was haunted, she was sure of it, be it by dragons or by Stannis himself, with his old maester and the knight he’d mutilated himself, yet kept as his only friend. Let them have it; she would have King’s Landing, the Red Keep, warm chambers and the promise of summer. The only Florent on Dragonstone was her uncle Axell, who thought little of her but much of the lady she’d become, a lady with a lordly husband in need of a castellan.

"This one is strong, I can feel it," says Lady Lysa, a hand on her strangely narrow, gaunt belly; Delena remembers that she’s lost more than one babe, in her four years of marriage.

Cersei Lannister smiles brightly, gives the other woman an encouraging nod. "Of course, my dear. Finally a living son for old Jon Arryn, now wouldn’t that be something?" The Queen gestures to a freckled serving girl, who distributes cakes, wine and tea around. "Go fetch more," says Cersei; as soon as the girl is out the door, she leans in, smile bright as ever, and confides: "Isn’t little Merria wonderfully pretty? She used to serve Lady Thorne, from what I’m told, but the dear girl passed away during the war."

"But she has freckles," says Lysa, frowning her nose. Delena can feel her face burning, every little dot on her nose, her cheekbones and her shoulders like so many needles digging into her skin. Surely they’ve forgotten her, haven’t taken a good look at her face in a while. Lysa continues: "I suppose we could say the girl is pretty, in a... peasant sort of way."

 _The girl, the girl, the girl_. The Queen was twenty, Lady Lysa twenty-two. When had they gone from a girl to a woman? The child in Delena’s belly kicked, as if on cue.  _Of course_. She herself wouldn’t be a girl anymore, soon enough; she would be a mother, sixteen or not.

The next day, Delena powders her cheekbones; the one after, she and the Queen eat alone, because Lady Lysa’s babe came during the night, early by two moons, dead and grey. The mere thought of it makes Delena sick, and the Queen gives her a sympathetic look, mouth pressed into a thin line. Merria, with her freckles, is nowhere to be found.

 

**-*-**

 

His wife is lying in bed, pale in a sea of colorful pillows, furs up to her chest and the bundle of cloth she’s holding. A low fever, the Grand Maester has assured him, nothing alarming. Cressen has told him the same thing. The man had arrived from Dragonstone two hours before the birth, having boarded the fastest ship in the Dragonstone harbor soon as Stannis’s raven had reached the island. His presence had comforted Stannis -- to an extent --, if not Delena.

He would not trust a man who had served the Mad King with the birth of his first child. Or any child, for that matter. Delena had promised him a dozen little Baratheons to liven up Dragonstone, even as she puked up every meal for the first two moons of her pregnancy. Silly, brave Delena, who’d barely even stepped foot on the island. Delena, who’d suggested  _Robert_ as his first boy’s name.

"It would make your brother happy, don’t you think?" she’d told him.

Stannis didn’t cake to make Robert happy, back then, and he doesn’t care now, chasing Pycelle and the midwives from the room so that he may allow himself to breathe again. He takes a seat at Delena’s bedside, reaches out for the child… and leaves a good foot of empty space between his wife and his arms. Maester Cressen is there in an instant, carefully picking up the boy and placing him in Stannis’s arms, slowly.

The babe appears to be awake.

"Careful with the head," Cressen and Delena say, at the same time.

The maester runs a hand over his eyes; Stannis could almost mistake it for crying, were he not absorbed by the sight of his son. He’s everything Stannis remembers of Renly at the same age, newborn and screaming.  _Strong-boned_ , to hear Pycelle say it, but then Stannis’s heard the same thing about Joffrey.  _Strong-boned and healthy_. The babe does look healthy, it’s true, pink and hungry, with a duvet of black hair, blinking eyes of the darkest blue. Large ears.

"He’s just like Renly," Stannis whispers.

A ridiculous statement, yet Cressen and Delena both nod vigorously. As if she’d know. The maester says: "The very image of His Grace and yourself, my lord. A true Baratheon."

The very image of Robert.  _It would make your brother happy, don’t you think?_ His brother already seemed perfectly delighted with Delena, more so than with his power-grabbing Lannister wife. Yet he cared nothing for the son Cersei had given him, Joffrey of the ground-shattering tantrums.

How could that be?

Stannis cradles his son -- Edric, they eventually decide on Edric --, listens to Maester Cressen praise his good health, watches Delena’s unfaltering smile, and wonders.

 

**-*-**

 

Her little Edric is born, strong as storms, the result of nine moons of a bitter marriage. She could weep for joy at the sight of him, perfect with his lone, jet-black curl of hair and his eyes, deep blue and lightening with every new day. She’s convinced Stannis must feel the same, must be as happy as she is, but when he comes into her rooms, chasing away old Maester Pycelle and keeping only Cressen, Delena senses that same detachment as usual. He cradles her boy -- his boy -- in his arms, carefully, observes him at length, observes her, then returns Edric.

Then, more importantly, agrees to name him thus.

From Edric’s birth comes a fight, with Delena speaking louder than she ought and Stannis calling her _woman_ , because Edric is his son and if he’s to be Lord of Dragonstone, someday, then he should be sent to live there, now shouldn’t he? Delena wins, in the end, with unsuspected help from Robert, who takes a greater interest in Edric then he does in his own boy, little Prince Joffrey, or in his own wife. The Queen no longer invites her to luncheons, not after Edric’s birth, and Delena struggles to understand what she’s done wrong.

Nothing, most likely, to Stannis and Cersei both. Delena’s husband doesn’t come to her bed for over a year, after Edric is born, speaking of rest and recovery. On the day he does, Delena takes care to blow the candles and, on an impulse, removes her clothes. Her pregnancy has drawn lines of purple and pink along her stomach, but Delena is pretty sure that she’s recovered from the rest of it rather nicely. It’s enough, anyhow, to make Stannis pause when he sees her, furs only up to her lap, and no higher. She watches for signs, the signs that were there on the wedding night, _there_.

Stannis is making an effort not to look at her, she knows. He’s always making an effort. "What are you—"

"It’s been so long. I simply wanted to—"

"You shouldn’t do this," he says, eyes on the floor, "you look just like Robert’s whores."

It makes blatant sense, now, why he wouldn’t touch her for a year, why the sight of her naked body is enough to fluster -- anger? -- him, why she’d have to work for every new babe. _Robert’s whores_. Delena would hate to be compared to Rhea, and found as… mean; Stannis would hate to be compared to his brother.

 _Like what, exactly?_ Threatening. Demanding. Menacing.

Rude, loud, immodest. Robert.

She wishes she could make it right; she wishes she could make him love her, or at least tolerate her, embrace her the way a man should embrace his wife. Instead, she whispers: "How can you be so cold? Don’t you get tired?" Then, sounding like a little girl in woman’s body: "Don’t you want me?"

If he does, he doesn’t show it, climbing into her bed, careful not to brush her skin with his own, and Delena is careful to keep her arms by her sides, unmoving and unloving, pretending that she can live this way, that it’s enough, stifling moans and breathing through shivers.

The next moon, Stannis wonders about her moonblood. It was Aunt Melara who’d asked, after her wedding, not him; it makes Delena smile, because: "Do you really think we made a child again, husband? It takes more than—"

"I know what it takes, wife."

"I wouldn’t have thought it possible."

So he comes back, again and again. Nearly every week -- every week! Every _week_. --, until they’ve settled into a routine that is acceptable, comforting if not comfortable, a routine which Delena only allows herself to break a few times, when she hears interesting tales from washerwomen, or the likes of Merria the serving girl, careful then daring, nimble.

She is halfway through her second pregnancy when Stannis announces he must depart for Dragonstone, to organize the Royal Fleet and crush the Ironborn uprising, half a continent away. Delena, sitting with those few wives and daughters of the Court who, lacking Queen Cersei’s favor, are now currying hers, makes her displeasure known: "You could say no, husband."

Stannis dismisses her women.

"Don’t be childish," he says; Delena’s freckles burn. "The kingdoms need me on Pyke, and I need you here. The child might come before I return, and then—"

 _Duty, duty, duty_. "If this one proves to be a boy," Delena says, "I thought we could name him Alester. For my uncle, Lord Florent. You—"

"I know who your uncle is. Why should our son bear his name? The man’s never even met Edric. He’s done nothing for us."

"It was he who brought us together. And, why, it would please him, don’t you think?"

And maybe her uncle would send a gift to his little namesake; maybe good Aunt Melara would come to keep her company after the birth, maybe Delena would be invited by Rhea to visit the Hightower.

"If you want to honor our matchmaker, Delena, then name the boy Jon. But not this one. If this is a second boy, you’re to name him Steffon."

"After your father." This she’s known for years, without ever asking him. Lord Steffon and Lady Cassana, lost to a storm. She wonders if he’d ever let her name a boy Colin, for her own father, or a girl for her mother, Bethany. Squirrely, freckled Beth, in her bed of blood. "A fine name, my love. Far better than Joffrey."

Stannis flinches -- it’s the _My love_ , Delena knows -- and is gone, then, to fight a war she hears nothing about for days on end, busy with Edric or this future baby. A daughter, she’s decided, but no Bethany; no Cassana, no Melara or Rhaelle. A new, fresh name, for a new lady.

Shireen is nearly a month old, Delena is recovering and Stannis’s fleet is headed for home when she first hears the rumor, something about strong, handsome King Robert and the children he’s fathered on his ugly brother’s pretty wife, because surely, despite the ears, Lady Delena should be treated right.

She’s on Dragonstone before Stannis is back, clutching Edric and Shireen in her arms.


	5. Dark Waters

Sitting alone in the Dragonstone nursery, Stannis observes his children.

The room is at the heart of the castle, blind and deaf, hidden from the outside world like a pearl -- or a tumor. Heavy drapes hide the bare, ever-damp stones, furs and rushes cover the floor. At the center of the room is a rug, the crowned stag of Baratheon in golden thread, hiding the stone carving underneath, a dragon claw holding the sword Blackfyre. The ruby that decorated the pommel was looted during the war.

On the rug is Edric, two years of age, with little care for dragons and deers, busy as he is with his wooden horses and the little men that ride them, wax and cloth. From time to time, he glances up at Stannis, frowns, and returns to his games. Try as Stannis might, he’s yet to prove worthy of the boy’s smiles, his giggles and happy babbling -- _Mama Mama Mama_. Edric is Delena’s through and through, excitable and whimsical, with Florent ears and the lightest dusting of freckles on his nose, just enough for a careful observer to notice… And if Stannis has been anything, in the last moon, it’s a careful observer, indeed.

If Edric is difficult, Shireen is a delight to her mother, her mother’s women, her septas and Maester Cressen, who says he’s never seen a babe sleep so soundly. Delena is with her always, except when Stannis is around. Dragonstone is large enough for his wife to elude him for hours, for she’s already mastered the maze of empty corridors and the covered passageways that circle the yard, hiding from her problems like the childish thing he should’ve known she’d always be.

He no longer concerns himself with her. They have a son, a daughter, a castle… And now, Stannis has the knowledge that Robert never did care for him, if what they say about Delena is true. Stannis knows _they_ say many a thing, and seldom ever speak truth, but the rumors had sent Delena into such a frenzy...

A month on Dragonstone, a month spent fighting with Delena and ignoring ravens come from King’s Landing, ignoring Robert’s summons.

_Do you think me this daft? Come back at once!_

Stannis had endured his King on the slow trip home, had bid his time as Robert knighted every green boy he could find, whored and reveled in the shadow of Casterly Rock, the castle of his Queen’s birth. Word had come from King’s Landing that Delena had birthed a girl, and once more Robert had expressed surprise at Stannis’s… manhood.

Men had laughed; the whore Robert had brought to his tent had cheered, sitting in the King’s lap with her chest exposed. Stannis had averted his eyes, gritted his teeth, and endured. And he’d found himself missing Delena, missing the routine and the comfortable silence, how the last few years had worked sense into his wife. She was different from the girl he’d met at Brightwater Keep, not so long ago. She was a woman grown, a mother, a partner. She’d never asked Stannis for something he couldn’t give her. Stannis had thought she was happy, or at least content.

But then, somewhere on the Gold Road, Stannis had first heard men name her -- Delena, his Delena -- a whore, a lover of Robert’s. They’d spoken of the strong children _handsome, generous_ King Robert had fathered on pretty Delena Florent, the wife of his ugly brother; they’d spoken of how golden-haired, black-hearted Queen Cersei had dismissed the lady from her entourage for this very reason, spoken of how Delena had chosen to nurse her youngest child herself, which the King was sure to find _irksome_ , which is why she’d been sent back to Dragonstone ahead of his return to King’s Landing.

Stannis had snubbed the Capital, riding to Duskendale and washing up on Dragonstone with the evening tide, head filled with this nonsense, with Robert’s boastful laughter, with the memory of Renly at Edric’s age, how they could’ve been twins -- And how Renly was the spitting image of Robert, now. He’d thought it absolutely impossible, remembered his wedding night; hadn’t Delena found Robert distasteful, back then? But he could be charming, indeed, taller and stronger… Stannis had once thought Delena seemed happy enough in King’s Landing, happy with _him_ , but maybe he’d been wrong; maybe this was Robert’s work.  

And yet… Robert had never been shy about taking what he wanted, but his _brother’s wife_? It couldn’t be. Not a highborn lady, not under the Queen’s nose, _not his brother’s wife_ ; Even Robert had to know better than shaming his own family with a bastard.

 _I wanted a peek, I got a peek_.

He’d known exactly what he’d say to Delena, what he could do to make this right, how they’d return to King’s Landing soon enough and put this behind them. He’d _known_ , and then his wife had come to greet him in the rain-soaked yard of Dragonstone, Edric in her arms, and Stannis hadn’t been able to look at the boy. He’d walked past her, past the septa that shadowed her and Maester Cressen, biding only the old man follow him.

Delena had come undone.

She had begged. Wept, clutched the fabric of his shirt in trembling fingers, repeated _It’s not true, it’s not true! It’s not TRUE_ as Stannis made his way to his rooms. _Won’t you listen to me?!_ his wife had called after him, handing Edric over to his septa, gathering her skirt in one hand and running like a girl, grabbing at his clothes with the other, _Why did you come here if you won’t listen to me?!_ And Maester Cressen had followed them around the castle, urging Delena to please rest; Stannis had learned that she’d fled King’s Landing in the dead middle of the night, paying for passage to Dragonstone with a belt encrusted in gemstones, leaving behind serving men and women, bringing only Edric’s septa. Axell Florent and the maester had done what they could to make Dragonstone comfortable for her, but Delena had spent the week between her midnight flight and Stannis’s arrival shut away, sleeping with her children in the large bed that had once been Aegon the Conqueror’s, crying over rumors.

Stannis didn’t know what to do, back then, and didn’t know now. From Maester Cressen, he’d learned that Delena had told Edric’s septa that she hated him. _If he won’t listen to me, if he won’t hear me, then I no longer have any love or care for him_. And to Cressen, Stannis had declared: _So be it_.

Stannis observes his children, and is the first to notice the black stone creeping down Shireen’s cheek, a month after his return.


	6. Grey

The bitter wind of Dragonstone tears away Delena’s shame and worry, leaving only anger. Righteous anger, indeed, when her Lord Stannis returns from the Greyjoy war and refuses to acknowledge both Delena and the rumors about her. Anger, when her cousin Rhea writes from the Hightower, probing and poking, _Can this be true?_ Aunt Melara’s letter isn’t much better; Delena burns them both, keeping only Melessa’s, in which her cousin describes her life at Horn Hill, her five children, some dog she’s taken a liking to ( _A gift from the heir to Highgarden_ , she writes), the flowers in her garden. And Delena misses the Reach -- the idea of the Reach, sunny and sweet-smelling, merry and musical, if not Brightwater Keep itself, her loud family. There is nothing sunny or sweet-smelling or merry or musical about Dragonstone; the island suffered greatly during the war, the castle is cold and dead, the black stone makes her feel trapped.

But then, Stannis offers to summon the daughters of his bannermen to attend her, because Edric’s septa has told him that _She does not have time for a second charge, and that is exactly what you are. A bored child_. Delena agrees, because she’s bored, indeed; she’s also the Lady of Dragonstone, and has found a new septa to care for Edric before the week is out. If Stannis notices, if Stannis cares, he says nothing of it; he doesn’t speak to her anymore. Not that he used to, before. They’ve become strangers again, of mind and body.

From Claw Isle comes Laenora Celtigar, fourteen and fair-haired, but as sour of mood as her grandsire. Young Lord Bar Emmon dispatches his cousins, twins Elarra and Helicent, sixteen and different as snow and sand. Joyful Elarra appears twelve; somber Helicent appears twenty, and they are of the same mind on a single thing: both immensely dislike Dragonstone. Morianne Morrigen sickens before she can make the journey, lively Berenna Buckler has been hastily wed for reasons Stannis refuses to share with Delena, and the Evenstar’s little daughter refuses to come. Lord Penrose does send young Perriane, although she’s an orphan, and only ten. But she’s covered in freckles, and Delena takes an instant liking to her, because the girl is adorable, spending hours playing with Edric.

There is nothing sunny or sweet-smelling on Dragonstone, but Delena is content with merry, musical Perri, Nora Celtigar and the Bar Emmon twins, although Nora seldom ever opens her mouth, and the sisters are constantly fighting. They lighten up the castle, make Delena laugh again, and make Stannis’s indifference almost bearable -- almost.

But then comes Dragonstone’s worst offense. It’s here, deep within the castle, that Shireen catches greyscale.

Slowly, at first, and in the most unexpected of places: on her cheek, as if the disease had kissed her there. Stannis had mistaken it for dirt, at first, had smoothed his thumb over the skin to find it cold and rough. Maester Cressen had been called, and he’d pinched Shireen’s cheek; her baby, her poor little girl, hadn’t made a sound. _She cannot feel it_ , the maester later says to Stannis, Delena, and the space between them. He’s done what little he could, but one so young cannot be put through a bath of hot water, cannot be covered in mustard or smelly poultices. The greyscale is creeping down her cheek, which Delena has been told is a good thing; it won’t attack her eyes, it won’t turn her tongue or nose to stone, it won’t make her lose her mind.

_And what about me?_

Maester Cressen advises that she keep her distance from Shireen, cry as the child might; Stannis has to command it, though, after she eludes the Bar Emmons at night, crosses the yard barefoot and is halfway to Shireen’s crib before Ser Davos can stop her. _Have you gone mad, woman?_ Stannis trusted his knight with guarding Shireen’s bedroom and with this, this newest quarrel, a new reason for him to resent her.

 _My child is dying_.

 _Children sicken. We must accept it_.

There’s something else, something just below the surface, like a truth unspoken, a feeling. Delena can almost hear it, can almost get him to admit it, almost crosses the distance that separates them, almost says: _Please, love me again_. But ‘again’ isn’t the word, Stannis is blank-faced and unmoving, and she decides to let it go.

If he fears, if he mourns, then Delena knows nothing of it.

Edric and Perriane are kept away, watched by septas and examined for traces of the disease; the Bar Emmon twins sleep in Delena’s bed and share tales of heroes and princesses (Elarra) or some vague story about how the cousin of a childhood sweetheart had greyscale and recovered, _Yes he did_ (Helicent). Lady Nora takes over writing Delena’s letters, and knows to leave the ones that come bearing the Florent sigil unopened.

But Shireen doesn’t improve.

Delena has often wept, begged, sobbed; it’s nothing, to kneel in front of the Seven in Dragonstone’s septry, knees aching from the cold stones, breath uneven. Hot tears are making her eyes blur and hurt, as she beseeches the Mother Above to spare her only daughter. _Gentle Mother, font of mercy_ \-- but she cannot feel any mercy, or comfort, or love. There is only the cold, indifferent silence of the sept (nineteen years of silence), and Delena Baratheon, for her title and her glory, is left alone, falling asleep under the Mother’s empty gaze.

Shireen improves, but not just yet.

"Wake up." Delena isn’t woken so much as dragged up, although gently. Before her is Stannis, inexpressive; behind is Ser Davos, holding Delena’s elbows in a loose grip. When she turns around to glare, the knight gives her what could almost be a smile. Gentle, indulgent, _Are you alright?_ Stannis isn’t smiling. "Why are you here?"

 _Why am I in the sept?_ "I was praying our Mother Above."

"Praying? You were sleeping."

Now that she’s awake, now that she is no longer sleeping on the hard ground, her senses appear to be coming back to her. Her knees ache, her back is sore, and she is terribly cold. Ser Davos releases her elbows, leaving Delena tugging at her sleeves for warmth. They leave the sept, walking through empty corridors toward Delena’s chambers.

They reach her door. Stannis does not speak, and his knight does not move. In her chambers, Delena can hear the low whispers of Lady Nora and the rest of them. She wonders if Stannis came to speak to her and found her missing, or if her women sent for him instead.

"I cannot lose Shireen," Delena says, just as he’s about to leave, and she means it fully. "I cannot lose Shireen, my lord -- Stannis, I cannot. I would go mad from it. I would, I would… I couldn’t bear it."

Behind her door, the whispers cease.

"And has praying helped? Is our daughter cured, this morning?" He doesn’t give her a chance to answer. "She isn’t. The Seven did not listen to you. The Seven know not what to do -- We can only hope that Maester Cressen does."

Ser Davos is looking at them with something akin to pity in his eyes. It’s the only comfort she can find, in that moment. _Don’t turn your back on me_ , Delena means to say, means to run after Stannis, but he’s gone already, lost to her -- Although he was never hers to begin with, and most decidedly not after he returned from the Greyjoy war, mind filled with the venom coming out King’s Landing.

It’s a disaster, but it's over.

So Delena abandons her prayers and resumes her crying, holding Edric close and ignoring the outside world, until Lady Nora vows to leave and the Bar Emmon twins, more proactive, go to Stannis with the matter.

 

**-*-**

 

The last day of the second month of the year 289 sees four ravens arrive on Dragonstone. One is from young Omer Florent, another from Melessa Tarly. Delena’s brother is writing to share the good news of a new link on his Maester’s chain, this one made of yellow gold; Delena’s cousin writes to share an unpleasant story about her eldest boy and the Redwyne twins. Stannis knows this, because Delena’s women read the letters aloud when she refused to open them, as though she were blind instead of lazy.

A third letter comes from Jon Arryn, who is not Stannis’s friend, but announces that his wife has miscarried the child she was carrying. The fourth letter is from Grand Maester Pycelle, announcing the birth of a daughter to Robert and Cersei, golden-haired Myrcella.

Stannis has the Florent letters set aside for Delena, burns Jon Arryn’s, and has Maester Cressen lock away Pycelle’s, if only for posterity’s sake. This is the sort of nonsense his wife might like to look through, in a decade’s time -- Should his wife decide to rise from her bed.

He’s taken his every meal alone, ever since he returned from Pyke. He’s discovered -- much to his annoyance -- that he almost misses Delena’s idle chatter. She has a knack for seeing what he cannot, when it comes to his children or the members of Dragonstone’s household. She has a liking for sharing improbable tales from her childhood in the Reach, the adventures of Lady So-and-So or the Knight of I-Can’t-Remember; Stannis does the remembering for her. Over time, he’s learned to replace his _You know not what you speak of_ and his _Baelor Hightower wasn’t even_ born _yet_ with a nod here and there, a grunt, some measure of interest.

He’d _almost_ learned, actually. The short time since his return from the west has undone two years of growth in his marriage, a marriage he’d thought might not be entirely destined to demise. He’d thought Edric would help, had thought Shireen would help, had thought Delena would be happy, once he came home to King’s Landing -- instead, he’d found her on Dragonstone, with terror in her eyes, and it’s on Dragonstone that his daughter had sickened, alongside his marriage and, as of late, his wife, although Delena was sick not of body, but rather of mind.

But Shireen was better. No -- Shireen was _best_. The patch of stone on her skin had stopped growing, content to scar her cheek and neck, but it would never go away. It would spread no further, Maester Cressen had assured him, but there’d been no joy in the man’s voice, the way there’d been no joy in Delena’s eyes when Laenora Celtigar, wearing gloves, had brought Shireen to her. Stannis had observed; Stannis had thought the sight of Shireen healed would bring Delena back to her senses, that she would eat, and bathe, and be happy again. Lively, chatty, insufferable, but happy.

She hadn’t. Instead, she’d wept and trembled, held Shireen tight enough to make the child scream, collapsed with her on the floor of her chambers and sobbed into her little neck, brow resting on the stone.

It’s after the four ravens and the news of Princess Myrcella’s birth that Stannis decides time has come for Delena to be Delena again. She likes children, and seems to crave the approval of Cersei Lannister, for reasons Stannis cannot fathom. But she might like the idea of leaving Dragonstone to return to King’s Landing and meet the new child, once… Once some matters have been settled. Matters he’d let fester like a wound, matters he should have dealt with before the new year.

His wife doesn’t come when summoned; Stannis has Davos fetch her instead, if only because Delena has always seemed to like the knight. And indeed she agrees to follow him, leaving her women -- and her tears -- behind and meeting Stannis in the room with the Painted Table. Her tresses are loose down her back, reddish in the dusk, but what Stannis most notices is her gown: a dark blue, in a fabric thick enough for the drafty towers and corridors of Dragonstone. And wrinkled from hem to collar, as though she’s been sleeping fully-clothed. Which she might have.

Delena takes a seat on the other side of the Painted Table, resting her elbows on Crakehall. Stannis ignores her lack of manners, instead glaring at Crackclaw Point until the silence is almost comfortable, the way it was before. Almost.

"Her Grace the Queen has given birth to a daughter," he says, prompting Delena to look up from the West and stare at him, almost confused.

"I know. Nora -- Lady Laenora -- heard it from your blacksmith’s son, and Helicent asked Maester Cressen, and he told her. Myrcella, every bit a Lannister, they say." Delena is silent for a moment, then: "They say Lord Rosby quipped about how the Princess is made of light, and our Shireen is made of… Made of stone."

Stannis presses one hand flat on Gulltown, focuses on steadying the other. Delena stares at him again, brown eyes hooded from sleep. "Why am I here?"

"You are here because I wish for us to be as husband and wife once more."

"Have I been locking the door to my bedchamber without noticing?" Scorn is better than silence, at least in Delena’s case. "My bed is always open to you, my lord."

Stannis remembers, not without some measure of shame, the few moons before the Greyjoy rebellion, how Delena and he were almost comfortable with one another, how they’d share a bed more often than he thought decent. The result had been Shireen, and from Shireen’s birth had come the rumors that had destroyed his marriage.

Delena is annoyed by his silence. "This isn’t about you. It’s about Robert, innit? You want to know if -- You think I betrayed you." She’s talking fast and loud, frantically tapping Casterly Rock with her fingers, which is better than her silence and crying of the last fortnight. "Truth is, my _Love_ , your brother is a disgusting pig."

"I won’t listen to you -- ..." Won’t listen to her what? Slander the brother who never respected him? Slander the King who’s been spending the realm into the ground for years? "I’ve asked you once," he says, very carefully, "long ago, I asked you if Robert had been… Improper, with you."

The answer is needed, has been for years, but it’s not wanted.

Delena laughs. It’s not a pretty sound, not this once. "It was a bedding ceremony, Stannis. _Everyone_ was improper with me, that night." A silence. "Everyone aside from you, as I reckon."

Stannis doesn’t reckon; he remembers. The night they made Edric.

 _I wanted a peek, I got a peek_.

He’d fumbled his way around Delena then, and fumbles his way around Delena now, staring at her over the Painted Table. There’s a continent between them, and two years of a secret that was never really a secret, because it never existed.

"Do you really think Robert, your brother, would shame you this way?"

"He’s shamed me before. Mocked, slighted, insulted me. We are living in the very proof of his disregard for me and what I’ve done for him."

Delena gives a shrug. "The Princes of Dragonstone used to stand first in line to inherit the Iron Throne, I’m sure you know that."

She is speaking to him as though he’s an unruly, imbecile child. Stannis makes an effort not to get up and leave -- This must be seen through, dealt with. Solved, for better or worse.

"I am no prince. And Robert has a son to succeed him."

"He didn’t have a son when he made you Lord of Dragonstone."

"But he does now." Golden-haired Joffrey, with his grasping mother and her family of wealthy oathbreakers. "A son and daughter."

"That son is Joffrey. Joffrey, not Edric. That you would even _think_ … That you would think me capable of betraying you, of lying to your face, of endangering myself and my children... " Delena gives Casterly Rock a venomous look, before standing. Stannis follows, moving faster than he thought himself capable of and blocking the way out.

"You’re in no danger here," he says. "It’s why you fled the city, yes?"

"I fled the city so the Queen wouldn’t come and claw my eyes out! I fled so that I wouldn’t have to face the King once he came back and heard -- Heard that people thought we… I could never do this to you! I could NEVER! I thought you knew." She’s crying, eyes puffy and red already. Stannis’s arms hang at his side, frozen and heavy, because he’s never known how to comfort or console anyone, let alone a woman. Delena continues, although Stannis can only make out half of it: "I thought… I thought… I thought we had something, that it was as good as it would get, after Edric. Because you never smile, you never laugh, you never even… You never even _scream_ , no matter how much I try and please you."

 _You do please me_ , Stannis means to say; "Don’t be obscene," he chides instead, and Delena’s tears come afresh, until she rushes past him, opens the door and, almost bumping into Davos on her way out, makes for her chambers.

Stannis has called -- screamed -- after her before he can stop himself, "Delena!"

She’s reached the inner yard when he finally catches up with her, running through mud, face and neck hit by a hundred needles of icy water. The wind is rising over Dragonstone, more so than usual, and the sky above is a foreboding gray. It doesn’t stop Delena from crossing the yard, blue skirt turning brown in the dirt. Stannis wipes the water from his face and follows, already chilled.

Delena is surprisingly faster than him -- That is, until she loses her slippers in the mud, face whipped by her unbound hair in the wind. Only then is Stannis able to approach her, tugging at his own cloak to wrap it around her shoulders. Delena hasn’t stopped crying; Stannis doesn’t flinch when she punches him in the chest, rather ineffectually.

"Stop," Stannis hisses, although the word is lost in the loud wind.

"You thought I was a whore!" Were there anyone in the yard, they could have heard; but they’re alone, with Davos somewhere inside and some attentive faces at the windows. "You thought I was a whore! How can I live with that?"

"Come back inside, Delena."

"I won’t."

"Come back inside, _Delena_." His wife doesn’t move. "I didn’t think you were a whore. I thought Robert, he... -- I thought my brother had dishonored you."

"But you hated me."

"No. I hated Robert."

And maybe Stannis hasn’t stopped feeling that same cold, indignant hatred, not yet, but at least Delena eventually wipes her tears away, and beams up at him as though he’s just given her a gift instead of forcibly keeping her in the pouring rain. When she leans into him slightly, pressing her forehead into the crook of his neck, Stannis freezes… but eventually allows it, leading Delena back inside with one arm wrapped around her shoulders.


	7. High Tide

Delena remembers the _High Lady_ , the galley who’d brought Rhea from Oldtown to visit Brightwater Keep, in the second year of her marriage. Her cousin was fourteen, incredibly beautiful, and newly pregnant, but such was her confidence -- and such was her influence on Lord Leyton -- that she’d hunted and danced, sipped honeyed wine and flirted with the Norcross brothers, as the days went by and her belly swelled. Delena had been six, back then, clinging to Ely’s skirt and sleeves, asking when she could meet the new child.

 _Not yet, silly Delly. It takes far longer_.

Delena had never never seen a pregnant woman before, or at least not one she could remember. Her mother had been pregnant a few more times, following Delena and Omer, but she’d never again been delivered of a living child, and they’d buried her with the last stillborn, when Delena was five. Her father had taken a second wife before the year was out but, during Rhea’s visit, she had yet to become pregnant with Merrell. She also had yet to earn the love of her new children, which is why Delena spent most of her time with her cousin.

Selyse was ten, and impossibly wise, yet she hadn’t protested as Delena chased Rhea around the castle. Rhea, who insisted she be called _Lady Hightower_ , had indulged them for a time, as she hawked around the Brightwater and wore the crowns of wildflowers that Delena weaved for her. But then, her pregnancy had taken a turn for the difficult -- Delena mostly remembers vomit and fretful tears, because Rhea had suddenly realized that she was fourteen and somewhat narrow-hipped, like Aunt Melara, and now her pregnancy was so taxing, indeed, that Uncle Alester had sent her back to Oldtown by way of a gilded wheelhouse.

Delena isn’t narrow-hipped, or fourteen, and just _Delena_ is fine, but the memory of Rhea’s troubled pregnancy is an unpleasant one to conjure, halfway through her own third. It has been difficult from the start, truly, but at that, Maester Cressen merely smiled and called her lucky, saying that Edric and Shireen were easy, and _this_ (vomiting and shivers and swollen feet and tantrums) is absolutely normal. Cressen has followed them back to King’s Landing, if only because Delena and Stannis both like him best over the Grand Maester, and so that he can keep a watchful eye over Shireen.

Her daughter, not yet one, was the object of such morbid curiosity within Maegor’s Holdfast that old Jon Arryn has moved the entire family into the Maidenvault, which Delena rather likes, because it’s away from the King, the Queen, and the little Prince Joffrey, who’s been caught hitting Shireen’s cheek, the scarred one. Delena hadn’t known what to do, but Stannis had argued with his brother until the King was yelling that _Children fight, it’s over! And if you’re not happy in_ my _castle, why don’t you go back to your own?!_

Yet it’s Robert who summoned them back, of course, stating that he needed his Lord Admiral -- not his brother --, although Stannis only accepted to go back after Delena told him she was pregnant again. And then, of course, there’d been the matter of the children, with Stannis insisting they stay behind on Dragonstone, and Delena saying that she wouldn’t go anywhere without the both of them. Or without little Perriane Penrose, or Nora and Elarra and Helicent, each bolder than Delena. Her women dressed in vibrant colours -- even dour Nora!, played games with the children and had been such a balm on Delena’s sorrow, since the beginning of her pregnancy, that she couldn’t imagine life in King’s Landing without them. In the first year after the wedding, maybe her lord would have shrugged and gone his merry way, content to leave wife and children behind, but something had changed following Shireen’s illness.

She wouldn’t describe her marriage as warm, but it was no longer cold. And sometimes, when the stars aligned, Delena would awake with Stannis in her bed, face and body almost relaxed, but never quite. They’d get there, of course. It made no doubt in Delena’s mind, really, now that she had a third babe on the way. She knew she would never live in a song, because nobody ever did, and intimacy might never be Stannis’s thing, but she would have the sort of easy life Melessa and Rhea had, with happy children. Stannis would keep his distance, as usual, but Delena had no doubt he loved the children just as much as she did. She also had no doubt that he favored Shireen, know it or not. It was Shireen who looked tiny and vulnerable, Shireen who’d needed such care so early into her life. As for Edric…

The first night back in King’s Landing, King Robert had feasted them, the Queen had gifted Delena with Myrish lace for a new gown, and the worry that had gnawed at her ever since the end of the Greyjoy war had melted away. People weren’t as eager to name her the King’s lover as they’d been, now that she was carrying a child that was unmistakably Stannis’s, now that Shireen had been left disfigured by a disease that would, undoubtedly, have spared royal blood. The Bar Emmon sisters liked King’s Landing _decently_ , as Helicent had told her. Both she and Lady Nora had kin in the city, and everyone agreed that riding on the road to Rosby was far better than riding on the broken, windy shores of Dragonstone. It’s Nora who, after the first week, had sat down with sweet Perri, asking the child to _Please_ stop asking every new person she met why the city stank so badly.

They’d been moved into the Maidenvault before the first month was out, but the Queen hadn’t lost her affability. She’d even invited Delena to a luncheon -- a luncheon, once again! --, like she had in the first moons following her wedding; Delena had garbed herself in Baratheon gold and soft Florent blue, and soon found herself sitting in the Queen’s solar. Her Grace was pregnant, a recent discovery that had made Delena giggle merrily and Stannis give a sharp nod. So was the Lord Hand’s wife, Lady Lysa. She’d grown a bit thicker in the middle since Delena had last seen her, and she wasn’t as chatty as she’d been. This was her seventh pregnancy, but none of the babes had lived, with the last miscarriage not even a year past.

Only Delena was due to deliver before the end of the year, though, and it could not come soon enough. She’d enjoyed her first pregnancy, because everyone had called her _lucky_ , with her wedding night child and her beauty, but this was different. She was bones-tired on the good days, absolutely unable to leave her bed on the bad. She had no appetite one day, wolfed down her food the next, and threw it back up oft as not. And she wanted a son, where before Shireen’s illness she’d wanted second and third and fourth daughters.

Shireen wasn’t flawed, nor was she made of stone, but Delena feared she would suffer greatly, with a sister who might become more beautiful, and unscarred.

For a time, desperately short in hindsight, Delena lunches with Her Grace and Lady Lysa, goes hawking with the visiting young Renly and his entourage of Stormlanders, men and women closer in age with Stannis but closer in temperament with Renly. Delena’s good-brother is eager to meet his future nephew, he says to her one evening, after supper has been cleared and Stannis has gone to look over sums with Jon Arryn. They’re on Delena’s balcony in the Maidenvault, watching people go in and out the sept, and Delena wonders if Stannis’s brother shares his disregard for the Seven Above.

Renly, halfway to fourteen, plays with Edric, halfway to four, and it makes for such an endearing picture that Delena can almost forget her good-brother’s disregard for Shireen. Greyscale isn’t catching, not with the stone on Shireen’s cheek dead as it now is, but even her own uncle has steered clear of her since his arrival. Delena can almost hear Stannis: _The child is barely a year old, what does she care?_ It’s Delena who cares, and Delena who suffers.

Renly says: "You almost got Stannis to smile yesterday, sister."

"Did I?"

"Oh, but yes. I thought his face would crack, like..." And then he’s silent as stones, and Delena can feel her throat close up. "I’m sorry, Lady Lena. I only meant, how very strange. I never imagined _Stannis_ would have such a pretty little family. And such a lovely daughter."

"You’re very kind, Renly." He makes her think of her own brothers; Omer, eager to amaze, please and dazzle, and Merrell, fostering at Horn Hill with Melessa and her children. Delena would have to write them soon; her cousin would be delighted by some gossip from the city. Horn Hill, as Delena pictured it, was pretty and sweet-smelling, but somewhat lonely, just a bit.

Renly has been gone for hours and the evening has stretched into night when Stannis finally returns. It doesn’t wake Delena; she has been awake for a while already, caressing her belly to soothe the child inside, because it’s been moving and kicking. Dawn eventually comes to find them both asleep, though, Delena sprawled over her bed and Stannis, asleep in a seat by the window, holding both a peaceful Edric and Shireen, who is awake and very much alert, observing the room with her clever blue eyes.

Her belly grows. As it does, Delena sees herself barred from hawking and dancing, from walking in the gardens and even from bathing in hot water. And the Queen’s belly grows, and Lady Lysa’s, until one day the Hand’s wife doesn’t come out from his Tower, and stays in there for a week, and nobody breathes a word about the child after she’s come out. It makes Delena want to cry and she does, holding Shireen and sobbing, because _How very benevolent of the Seven to let me keep_ my _child and how very cruel of me to have such a thought_.

The second day of the last month of 290 AC, Edric and bright little Prince Joffrey play with brand new toys, while Delena and the Queen watch, drinking tea and discussing Myrcella and Shireen -- mostly the Princess. The fourth day, Delena is able to get a smile from Stannis _and_ from the Lady Lysa. The fifth day, shortly before dawn, she awakes to find she’s wet her bed.

Delena’s heart is pounding something awful, and for a moment she mistakes the large doors that give on her balcony for strangers in her room, and would scream if not for how dry her throat is. She disentangles herself from her covers to find them soaked. It’s a strange feeling, forgotten decades ago, and Delena is first puzzled, then shocked, then horribly embarrassed, because maybe she was dreaming about water or the privy, strange as dreaming about the privy might be, and if she can find Lilly the serving girl then maybe she can-

"My lady?!" It’s Nora Celtigar, pale-blonde tresses unbound for the night, holding a candle. "My lady, you were thrashing in your sleep. Heli thought-"

"Ely? Where is Ely?"

"Our Helicent, my lady," Nora begins, but then maybe she finally sees the wet bed, and is so very disgusted indeed, because then she’s choking out something and screaming, and sending for someone -- Lilly? But then only maesters come, sour Pycelle and kind Cressen, and then Stannis (white as chalk) and even Queen Cersei, in a nightgown of red like blood blood blood, and Delena loses track of time as milk of the poppy goes down her throat, and they’re pinching her nose to make her swallow, like a child (A child? _My child_ ), and she can barely feel her own body anymore but she does feel, She does feel, when Maester Cressen reaches inside her and forces something to bend until it can only break.

There’s a scream, a man’s scream.

After this, only black.


	8. Pearl and Tumor

Maester Cressen informs Stannis that his wife and newborn son might not survive during the Hour of the Wolf, nigh a whole day after Delena’s labor first started.

Unexpectedly, in the middle of the night. Stannis had crossed the Maidenvault to find his wife’s room already busy with her women, her septas and her midwives. Cressen had been there in an instant; Maester Pycelle had arrived in the next hour, and Robert -- Stannis assumed it was Robert -- had sent Arys Oakheart, the newest knight in his Kingsguard, to stand watch over the chaos. Because it had been chaos, from start to finish.

The first hour had been for Cressen only. Stannis trusted him, and had sat outside as the man instructed… Because he’d refused to go back to bed, and he’d refused to go break his fast. The smaller Bar Emmon twin and Delena’s Penrose ward had been sent to watch over the children; the other twin and Laenora Celtigar had stayed with Delena, behind a closed door.

The Grand Maester, smelling of breakfast, had arrived by the second hour, Oakheart before the fourth. By the fifth hour, the sun was shining bright above King’s Landing. Delena had screamed throughout hours six and seven, before falling terribly silent -- Oakheart had shiny white armor, and then an even whiter face, because the screaming of women in the birthing room could apparently not be compared to men’s shouting in the practice yard. And Stannis had begun to doubt; did Robert care for the safety of his unborn nephew, or did he simply mean to haze the new knight?

During the eleventh hour, Delena had called Stannis’s name, once. A messenger had come from Robert -- his king was inviting him to go on a hunt. On a hunt! In the late afternoon, the Queen had sent a favored lady of hers who’d given birth to six children, and presumed to comfort _Lady Baratheon_ in her ordeal. Stannis had sent her away. Cersei had eventually arrived herself, and Stannis had despised the look on her face.

Was it pity? Both he and Delena had little need for pity.

Was it contempt? Mockery? Enjoyment? Curse her for it, then.

Yet, it’s Cersei who’d first braved the maesters and midwives, throwing open the door to Delena’s room, because _Surely a comforting presence might help your lady, yes?_ Stannis had followed her, with her red skirt and her red sleeves, and inside the room… There’d only been more red, everywhere. Even the Queen had stopped, so abruptly that he’d almost bumped into her. Had she expected to find Delena calling for her, like a sister? To be welcomed and thanked, given a babe to hold?

Delena lay in a bed of blood. Stannis didn’t understand-

Stannis had never seen-

Helicent Bar Emmon was sitting behind his wife, keeping her from moving. Laenora Celtigar was kneeling on the floor, her elbows on the bed, holding Delena’s hand and pressing a cloth to her forehead. And his wife… Her face was slack, white as chalk, her eyes had darkened and sunk into her face after hours of crying, screaming and thrashing about. Her mouth was half-open, and she did not move when he spoke her name. Not moving, not speaking, and the child was not yet there.

Maester Cressen had rushed to meet them, half-bowing and half-pulling and pushing them back out. Stannis hadn’t been allowed inside until the nineteenth hour, after Delena’s screams had echoed afresh, then stopped. And then Stannis’d heard the child.

Grasping for breath, kicking feebly in Cressen’s arms; they’d meant to keep Stannis out, but it’d been _hours_. He’d beheld the child. _A son_ , the old maester had announced, tone as dreary as it’d been when he’d announced Shireen was _cured_. Stannis remembered Renly and Edric and Shireen and Joffrey, remembered healthy, pink children. This one, this son, looked almost grey. But he was alive, Cressen swore he was alive, but the birth had been so very difficult...

And Stannis’s wife… Delena was dead.

No -- Delena looked dead, in her bed of blood, with Lady Laenora and Lady Helicent at her side. Her eyes were shut, her mouth trembling with feverish shivers. Stannis had spoken her name, twice, and gotten no answer.

He’d wanted to stay with her, truly, but then Maester Cressen had left the room with the child and he could only follow, because what if the babe… He’d only understood what the maester had done to get him out after they’d left Delena’s room, when he’d seen the broken, twisted leg. His son wouldn’t stop howling, hadn’t stop howling, won’t stop howling, until Cressen ever-slowly gives him a drop of milk of the poppy, the barest hint. The very first milk his son tastes, and it’s the one maesters give to dying men.

Cressen is silent for a long moment, regarding Stannis with something that might be fear, and the child with the sort of concern he’s always had for Shireen, but not Edric -- pity.

"Be honest with me," Stannis carefully says, a bit unwilling to hear. He cannot bear to look at the babe, not after hearing it -- _Him_ \-- howl for so long. Surely, he couldn’t... The maester shakes his greying head, makes a sound like a sob. "Be _honest_."

"My lord… Stannis, my dear boy..."

And there’s nothing more Stannis could need for his answer.

There’s nothing he can do for the child, cared for by Cressen, and nothing he can do for Delena, cared for by the Grand Maester and her women, and so he goes to find Edric and Shireen. Edric is curled up in his bed with the little Penrose girl, Shireen is sleeping in her crib, and the old septa is snoring in the next room. They do not know -- even if Delena passes, even if the new child doesn’t live, they won’t know, they won’t remember, the way Renly cannot remember anything of Lord Steffon and Lady Cassana. Except for what he’s been told by Robert, and Robert always remembers everything wrong.

And Stannis… If Delena didn’t survive this, he would send the children back to Dragonstone, for one, away from Robert and the hot stink of King’s Landing. He would find places for the Penrose girl, for the Bar Emmon twins (the flippant one and the sensible one both), and send Laenora Celtigar to Stonedance, or maybe Driftmark, for Massey or Velaryon to wed. The girl had a good head on her shoulders, and Delena quite liked her, and Stannis owed it to her to-

He wouldn’t have to. Delena and the babe would live. Stannis has to cling to it, even as he writes letters throughout and past dawn, for Ser Axell on Dragonstone and Lord Florent in the Reach, and for his daughters, Melessa Tarly and Rhea Hightower. His wife hasn’t seen them in years and yet every day shares new tales of her youth with them; maybe they can journey to King’s Landing, help Delena recover. Lady Tarly loves babes, he’s been told, and Lady Hightower loves to be loved.

Davos comes and goes, two sons in tow. His wife is rearing four others back at the keep Stannis granted him, six years ago -- a lifetime, now that Delena is dying. Stannis has no doubt the man can find a way to sire a seventh, once he returns to visit.

Even Robert comes, with Renly. Stannis’s younger brother is prim and proper as ever, dressed in green and gold; the King has a red nose, a foul breath, and no comfort to offer. But then, he was never good at it, and Stannis never had any need for it. "If anyone can save them," Robert says, "it’s our Cressen. That right, Renly?"

"Of course."

Stannis wonders if they’ve heard about the blood and the screaming and the _Crack!_ and the broken leg, even as they leave, promising to return soon. Stannis hopes they don’t.

When he next decides to check on Delena, the Bar Emmon twins have swapped places and the Celtigar girl is sleeping in a seat by the window, curled up like a cat. Lady Elarra is working on stitches by the fire, sitting opposite a new face. Jon Arryn’s wife, the Lady Lysa, who’s keeping up idle chatter with some freckled girl. The servant is kneeling at the foot of Delena’s bed, scrubbing the bloody floor. They stand when Stannis comes in, save for the Hand’s wife and the sleeping Laenora.

"Shouldn’t my wife be recovering in peace?" Lady Lysa gives him a look, like he’s interrupted _her_ , as if this is _her_ sickroom. "The Grand Maester himself called for rest."

"I know what is needed after difficult labors, my lord, thank you. Leave us, Merria." Lady Lysa has the serving girl scurrying out the room with a wave of her pale hand. "I simply wanted to make sure Lady Delena is given proper care," she continues. "The _Grand Maester_ butchered my last childbirth. I almost lost my life, you know, and now my Jon presumes we needn’t try..."

Laenora Celtigar stirs in her sleep; Stannis is glad for it. He knows of the Arryns’s troubles, has noticed the new lines on the Hand’s face ever since the last babe, but he cannot think about this now. And the Lady Lysa makes him uncomfortable, the way the Lady Rhea did. If he’s to suffer one at Delena’s side, let it be Hightower’s wife, who might at least bring her some comfort.

"You needn't justify yourself to me, my lady. I simply ask that you let my wife rest. You can visit for tea and cakes once she’s recovered." He pauses; Lady Lysa is looking at him expectantly. "I’m sure Delena would be most glad to have you with her, then." _And she would be most glad to hear me_ gently _ease you away._

Lady Lysa takes her leave, followed by Delena’s women, until Stannis is alone with the pale, feverish shade of his wife. Lackluster auburn hair, freckles standing out like tiny splatters of blood, eyes rimmed in red. Stannis wishes he could have more letters to write, or matters of the realm to sort through with Jon Arryn and his bored, drunk King, but some young Royce squire came not an hour past, in between letters to Hightower and Tarly, to convey the Hand’s message: _Please, stay with your wife_.

And so he takes Elarra Bar Emmon’s seat and takes Delena’s burning hand in his cold one, tentatively, as though she might wake up -- or as though her fever might worsen at his touch. She doesn’t move, but Stannis could swear her breath hitches a bit. He wishes he could share with her what he’s been told by Cressen, what he’s shared with Davos already. The boy (he doesn’t have a name, Stannis cannot name him while he screams and screams, while his mother is dying) can never run, but he might walk. The bone might yet set right; Delena’s fever might yet break, although Cressen and Pycelle both have agreed on this: No more children.

 

-*-

 

They keep her sedated with poppy.

Delena only comes to understand this after days of waking at irregular hours to find her bedchamber empty, or teeming with maesters or washerwomen or Baratheons, come to pray or simply look at her, the Queen in red or Renly in green, or the King with a cup of wine, a silent Jon Arryn at his side. Maybe they’re dreams, nightmares; what they’re saying is terrible.

_Such a pretty little boy you’ve had, my lady. A shame he’s to be a cripple._

_My Queen, bones can heal._ Renly, a bit mocking, a bit defensive.

_Of course. We must pray our Lady Delena can, herself._

They leave, and Delena means to say: _Don’t leave me alone_ , but then it’s night again. She can hear a babe crying -- howling -- in the distance, and would rise from her bed and go in search of it (My child?), could she move. Her back, her middle, they feel as though she’s been set on fire. And sometimes they feel terribly cold, and sometimes Delena simply cannot feel them. There’s more poppy.

Stannis is there, sometimes, pacing at the foot of her bed. Lady Nora bathes her forehead in icy water, Elarra (Helicent?) gently eases soup down her throat, and Helicent (Elarra?) arranges Delena’s pillows and furs around her, and yet the cold doesn’t go away. And other times, oft at night, she’s drenched in sweat, kicking the covers away best as she can. Nora or Heli (not _Ely_ ) or Elarra or even freckled Perri Penrose are often there, sleeping next to her in a sea of pillows or standing watch at the door, and Delena can only think about the blood. Did they clean it?

They look at her with pity, even gentle Cressen. Delena wonders about her child, and is given more poppy. It’s the worst answer the maester could give her.

She dreams of Selyse, scowling at the dirty floor -- blood and vomit and sweat. Does that mean they haven’t cleaned it yet? She dreams of Aunt Melara, who declares herself unimpressed with this newest child. She dreams of Melessa, playing the harp; Rhea, giving her a crown of wildflowers to wear; Alekyne on her wedding day, nodding his approval. She dreams of her father and her lady Mother, with her last, dead babe. She dreams of young Omer at the Citadel and younger Merrell as he was last Delena saw him, a child of merely four running around Brightwater Keep. He would be seven now, and running around calmer, warmer Horn Hill. She misses them; she misses the Brightwater, surprisingly, misses home -- _home!_ \-- and the girl she’d been, a girl whose body wasn’t broken and bloody.

And she dreams of Stannis, standing at her bedside with Maester Cressen and Ser Davos, the lot of them somber and silent.

_Have you written Tarly?_

_I have, my lord. However, should the lady choose to journey for King’s Landing…_

_A month, I know that. But I want -- I would_ like _my wife to have some company while she recovers._

_Of course, my lord._

A month before Melessa can be here, they say, but only a week has passed when Delena’s fever is finally broken. And on that day, there’s only Stannis.

Sunlight is filtering through her windows, bathing everything in a lazy glow Delena thought unique to her Reach. The scent of blood hasn’t gone away, but there’s also honey and peaches, somewhere near. Yet Delena isn’t hungry; rather, her body… She’s never felt this comfortable, she’s never felt this _peaceful_ , and for a moment she wonders if maybe she isn’t high on the poppy. But her mind isn’t foggy like it was before, and when she opens her mouth, her tongue is actually moving, and she’s able to speak.

Shireen is sitting in her father’s lap, and for a second, in this light, the scar on her cheek is barely visible.

"Husband, am I dead?" It startles him, as much as he can be startled. "Good morning, my lord."

"It’s half past noon."

"What day? Where -- My lord, my baby, is..." Stannis carefully places Shireen at the foot of Delena’s bed, but her daughter has crawled into her arms in a second. Delena is aware that hot tears are streaming down her face, but it’s hard to care, not when she thought she might never-

She thought she might be reunited with Selyse.

Stannis is standing up. "Don’t leave! I want to know about the child -- Cressen, Nora, they wouldn’t say, they… A girl? Is -- The Queen says it’s a boy, the Queen says he’s... "

Crippled. How? Delena remembers wetting her bed -- _I didn’t, I bled, I lost the baby?_ \--, remembers screaming and fevers, remembers something breaking.

"I want to know, Stannis. Please. I have slept enough." Shireen nestles her face in the crook of Delena’s neck, hard stone on soft flesh, but Delena is overwhelmingly grateful for it. _You lived, you thrived, and so can your brother_. "A boy, then?"

Sharp nod. "Cressen twisted his leg to get him out, there was no other--"

"I understand." She’s nodding, almost frantically, She doesn’t care what had to be done, doesn’t care what Her Grace has been saying -- they need only bring her the boy, her baby, and then she can make it alright. "Bring him to me, my lord. Please. Can I go to him?"

A shadow crosses Stannis’s face, worse than both a sharp nod or a curt _No_. "You cannot walk," he says, very carefully, because Delena’s already rising in her bed, sinking in the pillows and furs, and there’s a sting in both her sides. " _Don’t_. I can bring him to you."

He does, although it takes him fifteen minutes, and by then Delena has almost fallen asleep, curled up with Shireen. The wheezing of her new son’s breath wakes up properly, though. At first, she only sees the bright yellow of his swaddling clothes, and would think it horrendous if not for what she next sees, the shock of black hair, more hair than Edric and Shireen had, more hair than she’s ever seen on a babe. Stannis places the babe in her arms, even says _Careful with the head_ , and new tears come afresh.

He’s pale, her son, and smaller than Delena knows he should be, but she can pretend he’s breathing fine, and pretend his leg is alright. "Cressen had to give him some poppy," Stannis murmurs, because the babe and Shireen are both sleeping, "but the bone is healing. And the nurse -- she’s from the Vale, formerly in the Lord Hand’s service."

"Good," Delena whispers, "good." But then, clear as day, she realizes: "Stannis, what’s his name?"

"He doesn’t have a name."

"I slept for a week!"

"You didn’t _sleep_ , my lady, you were dying. I had more pressing concerns than naming a babe who might not…" There’s a silence between them; very short, but there. Stannis is the one to break it, for once. "I thought you would like to pick the name yourself."

And that she has. Years ago, when Shireen was born a girl, and not the second boy Delena thought her lord might want, back then. If the King had named his little prince _Joffrey_ , then surely he wasn’t about to use it.

"Steffon," Delena says, and she kisses her son’s wrinkled brow. "Steffon Baratheon of Dragonstone."

Of Dragonstone, indeed. Days later, after Delena has met the wet nurse, been allowed to _bathe_ , and tentatively paced around her room for some minutes before her knees gave in and her back started aching terribly, she first catches a glimpse of Steffon’s eyes. Not Targaryen purple, not exactly, but a deep indigo, the darkest of blues, almost black when compared to Shireen and Edric’s sapphire.

Delena says his eyes are _clever_ , and Stannis answers that he’s just a baby.

"Princess Myrcella is lovely, but can you imagine if she had Targaryen eyes, with hair like hers? Your lady Grandmother, the princess, were her own eyes this dark? I reckon I’ve heard in a song that King Aegon’s eyes were so very dark, they appeared blue, but there was no missing his Targaryen heritage."

She’s never actually discussed anything coming even close to _grandmothers_ with Stannis, let alone the war. He doesn’t appear to be taking kindly to it, saying: "Please, do not wish for Targaryen features in the King’s children when he’s around, my lady."

"I won’t! Pinky swear."

Stannis glares; Delena is almost glad for it. She’s glad for the sour taste of medicine in her mouth, glad for the sharp discomfort in her middle, glad to be alive. "Besides," she continues, "I would much rather _my_ children had it. And the Queen’s babes are Lannisters through and through, anyway."

At that, Stannis gives a sharp nod. Approval?

Delena sees little of him in the coming days, as the year turns and Steffon thrives, his eyes actually lightening by a few shades until they’re more purple than blue, really, even though she doesn’t allow herself to be excited about that. Of her lord, Delena knows only that he’s been spending his days meeting with the Hand, although he comes by every night to sup with her -- she abed, he sitting by the window, pretending that it doesn’t bother him to be eating dinner in a bedchamber. Delena loses the Bar Emmons, gone back home to marry, Elarra to a brother of Lord Sunglass and Helicent to Lord Buckler, who is widowed and twice Heli’s age, but only has daughters, including one by the name of Alicent.

It amuses Delena, who shares the story with Stannis. In return, Stannis announces the birth of Prince Tommen, golden-haired and every bit a Lannister, like Joffrey and Cella. Delena is excited, of course, but she has a babe of her own to hold, cradle and marvel at. At best, maybe her Steffon and the new prince can become playmates, once they’re a bit older.

_A shame he’s crippled._

Nevermind the Queen and her golden babes. Delena is content with Edric and his Florent ears, larger even than her own; for Shireen and her scar, Steffon and his bad leg. She’s content with Stannis, who only ever smiles for his family -- Delena is slowly becoming a part of it.

The next week, handsome Ser Arys of the Kingsguard takes Delena’s arm to steady her as they walk into the Maidenvault’s gilded dining room, because Stannis has unexpectedly invited the Lord Hand to dine with them.


	9. Bird of Prey

Everyone seems to forget about Delena and her new boy, in the moons that follow the birth of Prince Tommen. But when they do talk of the crippled Baratheon, it’s to compare him to his cousin, who’s stronger and might undoubtedly become more handsome, yes? Delena learns not to care. Mostly because, eventually, she no longer hears; with the Bar Emmons gone and Nora busy steering her grandsire’s course as he searches for a husband for her, Delena’s only source of gossip has become Merria the maid, whose job is to mind the food and the floors; there’s also Polly, but this one is a lady’s maid, whose job is to mind Delena’s hair and clothing. Both used to work for Her Grace, and both are chatty as can be. But stern Clarisse, the children’s septa, allows no gossip -- or anything girlish -- in her presence, and Jynne the wet nurse is busy with Steffon and her own babe, a girl with hair as dark as Delena’s own children’s.

Her days begin and end the same, usually.

 _The Queen has refused my services_ , Jynne says, _as if a girl with a body like that could nurse properly. No offense to you, m’lady Lena, but that woman bloody hates me. Much rather serving you, I do._

And Clarisse, red blooming on her face, makes the lot of them leave, because Edric has taken a great liking to repeating whatever he might hear. Delena’s son has already heard the King say _cunt_ , and his father say _bastard_ , and Ser Davos say _horseshit_ and _crap_. It makes poor Clarisse rage and Stannis frown, but Delena is glad, if only because she’s eager to hear what Edric has to say. Although… Prince Joffrey is talking, and none of what he says is very interesting -- or very kind. But his babbling most pleases the Queen, and her joy is almost catching, like sunshine on shadow.

The day Prince Joffrey rides on his little pony around the stables of the Red Keep, the Queen invites Delena and the Lady Lysa to go hawking with her. Delena has never known the Queen to care much for hunting -- this is the King’s realm --, and both she and the Hand’s poor wife have yet to fully recover from childbirth, even nearly two moons into the new year. But Delena’s cousins have written to say they won’t be able to make it to King’s Landing before the middle of the year, _if_ they come, and she doesn’t want to lose the Queen’s favor, not again.

And thus she dons her riding outfit, a pale blue to match Lady Lysa’s, and outside they meet with the Queen, in red. Red, of course.

Somewhere between King’s Landing and Rosby, looking as disinterested as can be, the Queen steers her mount closer to Delena’s, and: "I wonder, dear sister, where your husband’s newfound interest in our Jon Arryn comes from."

Lady Lysa is several feet behind, seemingly discussing the changing weathers with a red cloak. Delena wishes they could trade places. But then, maybe not; what might Lysa say to Cersei about the dinner? It’d been tiresome from start to finish, in truth, mostly because Delena was _actually_ tired. Stannis and the Lord Hand had spent a few minutes talking about finances and new galleys for the Royal Fleet, before suddenly discussing the King’s children -- and his nephews. That’d been more than Lysa could bear (how could Stannis not have anticipated that?!), and Delena had followed when she’d excused herself from dinner, half to make sure Lysa was alright, and half so that she could go back to bed, herself. Lysa wasn’t alright, and Delena had slept poorly, woken several times by Steffon’s distant crying. She’d eventually gone in search of Stannis, and found him awake, alone in his study.

They’d had some bizarre, unprompted chat about Jynne:

_That wet nurse, Jeyne…_

_Jynne_ , Delena had corrected, but Stannis had barely noticed it.

_Did she ever say where she came from?_

_I don’t know. Jon Arryn found her, you told me so yourself._

_Aye._

It appeared Stannis had a new secret to keep from her. What? Something he shared with the Lord Hand? Is that why the man was suddenly coming to dinner, when before that he’d been content to politely nod at them? Is that why Stannis was suddenly urging him to bond (bond, he’d used that word) with Edric and Shireen and even little Steffon, her sweetest babe, old enough to be mocked but not much else?

If something had changed, then what?

She wasn’t about to share those ideas with the Queen, though. Her Grace didn’t like Stannis, and Stannis didn’t like her, or the King, and Delena had been caught somewhere in between since her wedding. She craved Cersei’s esteem the way she’d craved sunshine, back on Dragonstone, even though she knew it was a far safer place for her to be than King’s Landing.

And thus she makes something up. "I don’t know, my Grace. We hold the Lord Hand in great esteem, of course, but he’s a bit..."

"Boring?"

"Oh, I wouldn’t say that. Were I my Lord Stannis, I’m convinced I would find his talk of galleys and Braavosi loans very interesting."

The Queen gives her a bright smile -- sunshine on shadow. They ride in comfortable silence, but only for a few minutes, before Cersei says: "I was told your little Steffon would never have a younger sibling." Delena would freeze in place if she could, but her mare isn’t bothered, keeping up with the Queen’s. "You must feel terrible about it, I’m sure. But consider this: better the children you have now than an early grave, yes?"

"Yes, my Queen. Of course." Did she feel terrible? Oh, yes. But this isn’t anything she’d been able to admit to herself, let alone Stannis, or the Queen. The fear and the hurt, she whispered them into Steffon’s tiny ears, and then let go of it. He needed her so much already, and would forever; he was more than enough.

"I have two sons and one daughter, you have two sons and one daughter. Marvelous, yes?"

To herself, in silence, Delena remembers: _Alysanne the Good bore thirteen children_. She’d wanted as many herself, when she was a girl, but only because she thought every new child would make her Lord husband love her more.

To Cersei: "Indeed, Your Grace." Delena is about to say that it’s a shame the cousins don’t look more alike when, away behind them, Lady Lysa’s buzzard escapes, prompting confused screaming and scared horses, followed with an early return to King’s Landing.

The Queen is smiling, though, seemingly unbothered by the futile hunt. "You should warn me the next time the Hand invites himself for dinner, Lady Delena. I should very much like to dine with him and good Lysa."

"Of course, Your Grace." But she wouldn’t. Stannis, the Queen, and Lady Lysa in the same room? It was a true recipe for disaster, at least for her.

 

-*-

 

A prospect more fortunate than hunting with the Queen and discussing tense dinners welcomes Delena, back at the Maidenvault. Edric runs into her arms, Septa Clarisse not far behind. Delena has always thought Clarisse has the look of an owl, eyes round and wide open, looking out for danger and sin. She’s in the right city for it.

"There’s a bird for you, Mama."

"Oh, really?" Delena says, scooping up her son to perch him on a hip. He’s getting past the age where this is possible -- and comfortable, at least for someone as short as Delena. Her sons would outgrow her in no time. "Who’s it from?"

"Aunt Rhea!" Edric has never met anyone in her family, back home. But he knows the names, something which Stannis has described in turns as ‘ridiculous’, then as ‘useful’. "It’s very long."

"Did you read it?"

Septa Clarisse approaches, slightly bowing her cowled head. "Lady Hightower’s intricate handwriting is beyond young Lord Edric’s current ability, my lady." Delena knows Edric doesn’t care much for sums and letters, but Cressen says he’s already got a good head for heraldry and coat-of-arms, foxes and flowers, wolves and suns, a stag on yellow. He likes the colours, the shapes.

Clarisse recovers Edric, handing Delena a letter in exchange. It bears the unbroken seal of House Hightower and is addressed to _Delena Baratheon, Lady of Dragonstone_ , describes the Dornish coast and the green waters of Estermont, promising a visit in the next fortnight, and Delena is suddenly more at ease than she’s been ever since the birth of Steffon. Stannis meant for Rhea and Mel to assist with her recovery, she knows, but she’s recovered already… for the most part. And Rhea would never stay cooped up in Delena’s chambers, not while she had the whole of King’s Landing to sink her teeth in. Delena hopes it can remind her of busy Oldtown, put her in a good mood; similarly, she hopes Melessa doesn’t get homesick.

Rhea promised a fortnight, but Delena sees her cousins for the first time in four years only ten days later, shoring up in the harbor on the evening tide. Rhea is alone, with her eldest boy recently gone for the Citadel and the youngest fostering with Lord Mullendore, but Melessa has brought her eldest son, Samwell, and her daughters, Talla and Rosamund and Ellyn. The first is six, hiding behind the mother’s skirt the way Sam once did; the second is five, shooting wide-eyed glances at the red stones of the Keep above, at the greying sky. Little Ellyn, four, is the boldest of the lot, loudly demanding to _go home_ , or at least go inside the castle, or at least do something _interesting_.

Sam and Talla and Rose have Randyll Tarly’s look, mostly, but Ellyn is a Florent entirely, with large ears and freckles and missing front teeth. Her curly hair reddens in the sunlight, shining brighter than Rosamund’s chestnut or Talla’s mouse-brown. She ought to be Rhea’s daughter, not Mel’s, marching ahead of the group as they walk back, hand in hand with Edric.

Septa Clarisse is near, breaking up the argument that arises when Edric declares: _I’m a prince,_ and Ellyn answers: _No, you’re not!_

Delena is left by the beach with her cousins, Arys of the Kingsguard, and the dozen of lesser nobles Rhea and Melessa brought with them. Everyone is to be housed within the Maidenvault, and it’s the first time she doesn’t feel incredibly _lesser_ than her cousins, because in the last four years she’s given birth to King Robert’s nephews, and lived on Dragonstone as the lady of the castle, and she knows the Maidenvault even better.

Melessa is the first to embrace her, after the children are introduced and then led up the road back home. The scent of the Reach is clinging to Mel’s hair and clothes, flowers and honey; Rhea’s scent is that of her perfume, something Essosi and rather overwhelming, but Delena has missed her enough to overlook that.

"I reckon calling you _Silly Delly_ is a hanging offense now," says Rhea. Only twenty-seven, her sons almost grown, her husband aging. He’s not left the Hightower since the end of the Greyjoy war, Delena knows, spending his time hunched over tomes or letters come from his many daughters, wed around the Reach. Or from Lynesse, the daring youngest, wed to some lord or knight from the distant North.

Rhea continues, tugging at the sleeves of her gown: "Let us proceed, yes? _Melly_ insisted on warmer clothing for the voyage at sea, but I’m dying to show you my newest gowns."

"And to meet your children, one assumes," Melessa teases, ever-gentle. And Delena has _missed_ her, so very much indeed, because Rhea and Mel could be twins, but a careful observer can spot glimpses of Ely in Mel’s smile, her cheekbones, her nature. And because her oldest cousin, Delena knows, is sure to shower love and warmth on Shireen, no matter the stone on her cheek.

They catch up to Septa Clarisse and the children in no time, mostly because young Samwell is constantly stopping on the way to ask the septa about this or that, enough to make Ellyn start crying, because _I’m bored, I want to play!_ She’s loud and lively, and Delena catches herself staring at her unscarred face with… What, longing? Jealousy?

"I’m so very glad your daughters could follow you, Mel. And little Sam, of course." The boy goes pink in the face at the sound of his name. "What a handsome little man you are, Lord Samwell. A knight in the making, I’m sure of it."

So what, if he’s short and round and scared of his own shadow? Children grow and change, boys turn into men. But Melessa appears uneasy, and Rhea is smirking, a bit unkindly.

"Would that our little Sammy weren’t the firstborn," Rhea says, loud enough for even the children to hear. "He could become whatever he desires, but he must be Randyll Tarly’s prized heir."

"That’s enough, Rhea," Melessa breathes, barely loud enough to be heard. Rhea gives a shrug. She hasn’t changed since the last time Delena saw her, with not even a new line on her face, or a kinder heart. She’s worse than Her Grace, or worse than Renly, when he’s not watching his mouth. Melessa goes on: "Samwell and his sisters were so very excited to meet you and your children, Lena. Isn’t that right, Sam?"

The boy goes even redder in the face, stammers, then: "I wanted to visit Dragonstone."

Melessa’s smile doesn’t falter. "Oh, that you did. But you might, Sam, you might."

They might _not_. Steffon isn’t old enough for the journey to Dragonstone, and Delena won’t leave him behind, not even to make Mel and her Sam happy. But there’s something else -- some twinkle in Melessa’s eye that isn’t unlike the one in Aunt Melara’s.

Delena sees her cousins settled in the Maidenvault, and soon enough they’ve gathered around Shireen and Steffon, playing in the nursery with Perri Penrose and Nora. Playing isn’t the word; Nora is reading by the window and Perriane, who’s now twelve, is having some manner of argument with Meryn Trant, who’s guarding the nursery. Arys Oakheart replaces him, once they’re back, and Delena hears Perriane say. venomously: _It’s not catching_.

Let Trant nurse his prejudice. Delena’s cousins do not share it… for the most part. Rhea stays away from Shireen, more than Delena would like, but Melessa perches her on a hip, beckoning her own daughters closer, and it’s the first time Shireen has other children to play with, children who aren’t her brothers, mean Joffrey, sheltered Myrcella or little Tommen, or the children of her wet nurse. She appears hesitant, at first, until Talla makes her sing, and Rosamund makes her dance, and Ellyn makes young Sam pretend he’s a horse, for Shireen to carefully ride on.

While they play, Melessa inches a bit closer, her eyes not leaving Sam. "The boy’s happy, isn’t he? In the city, I mean. He was so very eager to come with us, be away from..."

Delena tenses, just a bit.

Melessa continues: "Randyll meant for Sammy to foster with good Lord Redwyne. You remember how that went, yes?"

"I do."

She remembers very little, in truth -- the letter had come while Shireen was sick, and Delena had… not been herself. But of course, the Redwyne twins were brutes; they have a Tyrell for a mother, the grasping Fat Rose of Highgarden for an uncle, the man who’d gorged himself on fish and game while Stannis and Renly starved. But his best general was never far, during that year.

"How fares your husband?"

"Good, good. My Randyll’s health is only getting better with every year, he says." Melessa’s face moves, the barest hint of a smile. She’s fond of the man. She _has_ to be. "We’ve been trying for a sixth child. More for my sake, mind you. Randyll is content with Dickon. And Samwell, of course."

"Of course."

There’s something on her cousin’s mind -- that slight twitch of the mouth, again --, but Melessa doesn’t ask until they’re alone, after Rhea and the children have retired. They’re sitting together on Delena’s balcony, drinking chilled wine. Melessa is holding Steffon, who since his birth hasn’t slept as much as slumbered, knocked out by milk of the poppy. His eyes are open, deep purple, searching for his wet nurse and settling on Delena.

Melessa is so very gentle with him that it makes Delena’s heart ache. Is this what outsiders saw, when they looked at her? Was her love for her children this apparent, this strong? More importantly, did Stannis know?

He must. He knew of her love, and she knew of his.

Finally, Melessa says: "Randyll has been considering other places to foster Samwell."

"Samwell is very young," says Delena. What she doesn’t say is that her Edric is only four, barely, and yet she’s already heard Stannis suggest Massey or Estermont or Royce, Jon Arryn’s vassal. Arryn, once more. Why did Stannis care for the man, suddenly? Delena continues: "You could send him to Lord Leyton. The Hightower is a fine place to grow up, I think."

"Randyll doesn’t want Samwell close to anything having to do with maesters."

Oh.

"And, Lena, truth be told..."

Delena listens, agrees, then argues the matter with Stannis for two days, because Randyll Tarly’s son is just as bad as Randyll Tarly himself.

But Delena wins, and the ship that brought Melessa to King’s Landing disappears on the horizon with only four Tarlys on board, not five.


	10. Proof of Treason

Sam is an honest boy, becoming even more earnest in Stannis’s company. He was scared of his father, Delena knows, and he’s scared of Stannis, but in the way one might be scared of strangers. Sam lives with them in the Maidenvault, more often seen in the company of Septa Clarisse, Merria and Polly, or Jynne, who eventually ceases to nurse Steffon, staying around only because Delena enjoys her company.

Delena sees more of Jon Arryn, in the coming moons. The old man dines with them every other day, goes riding with Stannis, seemingly encourages his wife to come and spend time with Delena. She welcomes the company, and Lady Lysa’s friendship; Lady Nora has returned home, set to wed Monford Velaryon, and Delena was never any good at spending time alone. She dines with the Hand, then, sews and rides and dances with his wife, until Lady Lysa announces a new pregnancy. The change in the poor woman is almost tangible, as she appears to sink into herself; Delena remembers her dead babes, numbering seven.

Seven -- the holy number. Maybe the Seven Above would be merciful, now that Lysa had lost so much.

Treacherous as it already is, Lady Lysa’s pregnancy makes Delena long for her own. The easy ones -- Edric and Shireen, back in the last few years of winter, when everything was new and entirely marvelous. Steffon… Steffon had lived, although barely, and Maester Cressen had been clear: _No more children_.

But time had passed. Nigh a year, actually; 291 AC had gone by in a blur, with the new baby, the changes in Delena’s household, the visit from Melessa and Rhea, Sam and how strange it was, to suddenly have this clever little boy around. And Stannis… Would he truly say no, if she went to him with the matter? He’d not shared her bed ever since the birth of Steffon, except to comfort her, with cold furs and unspoken dreams and feet of empty space between them, but what about now?

She’d recovered. She’d recovered, and now she missed her strange husband. He was always busy with the Hand, or the King, or crossing to Dragonstone for some matter or another, and… Delena, at sixteen, could never have imagined that here she’d be, at nearly twenty-one, longing for the embrace of her cold, solemn husband, who never laughed, hardly smiled, and marched to her bed the way some marched to war.

Nearly twenty-one, and the mother of two sons and one daughter, like the golden Queen. She could do her one better; she had to.

Did she?

She’d been plagued by that same unkind, horrible, unnatural thought, ever since her poor Steffon’s birth, how a crippled son -- and one ugly, scarred little daughter -- weren’t truly worth anything, weren’t as valuable as golden-haired Joffrey and Myrcella and Tommen.

They’re enough for _her_ , but maybe not for the world.

Stannis’s answer is a categorical, shocked _No_ , as if she had suggested they strip naked and go wim in the filthy Blackwater. They’re in the nursery, with Shireen and Steffon nearby, with some of Merria’s women scrubbing the floors, but she doesn’t mind them, not after what the lot of them had the audacity to say about her, not two years past.

And it’s not like she asked him to return to her bed. Instead, she asked: "Do you think we could have another, my love?"

" _No_." Categorical; shocked. "Why ask? We cannot. You know that."

"My worth is lost, is that it? Now that I can no longer bear you any more sons, am I of any use to you?" She’s cruel; she’s unreasonable, she knows it, but the feeling… Stannis always comes within her reach, then leaves. She can’t figure him out; five years, and she can’t figure him out.

 _I want more children. I want to be healthy again._ It’s not Stannis’s fault, it’s definitely not Steffon’s, but it’s not _hers_. It just isn’t… just.

" _Leave us_." He doesn’t even speak the names, but Merria’s women scurry out the door. They’re left there, in the nursery, which is a sad place to be, when discussing this problem. Steffon is sleeping, Shireen is cooing happily, and Septa Clarisse might return any time, now. But Delena chooses not to falter, and so does Stannis, cool blue eyes meeting warm brown ones. Like winter on spring; maybe it’s why her marriage has always felt like a battle. "We cannot have more children, _Delena_ , because you could lose your life. You know that as much as I do -- why ask? Has Cersei… Has the Queen spoken to you, about it? About the children?"

 _Better the children you have now than an early grave, yes?_ But that didn’t mean anything.

He continues: "Do you presume I hold you in so little regard, wife? Is your counsel not heeded, are your desires not seen to? I took in Samwell Tarly, the son of a man who once kept me a prisoner in my own home, starved me half to death, only for you."

 _Starved me half to death_. It’s a story Delena’s heard before, of course. She’d done much and more to hear what little she could about it, in the beginning of her marriage, back when she thought it was the key to understanding Stannis. He’d suffered during the war; maybe he simply needed a charitable ear, somebody he could talk with, not his brothers or Maester Cressen or his Ser Onion. It hadn’t worked out.

 _It’s not what I asked you_ , Delena means to say, but that argument is lost already. So, instead, she plays that game: "I pray you can outlive every Targaryen loyalist, and live a single day without hatred in your heart. It might do you some good." Just a little bit cruel, just a little bit unladylike, teasing and probing to get Stannis to react.

He does. "Hatred? It has nothing to do with hatred. I simply remember, where others choose to forget. Randyll Tarly must be having a grand laugh, calling me his kin by marriage."

"Nonsense. Randyll Tarly has never laughed." _You have so much in common_.

Septa Clarisse returns, then, Edric in tow. Delena watches her son’s face, when he notices his father. It brightens up, it positively brightens up, and suddenly the boy is walking a bit faster, chin held a bit higher, until he reaches them and, with a confident look back at his septa, bows and says: "My lord Father, my lady Mother. Good morning."

They move toward him at the same time, she and Stannis; Delena takes a step back. Not a day goes by where she doesn’t spend time with her first boy -- it’s different for Stannis, who oft as not returns from his days spent around the Red Keep (or the city? What does he even _do_ , these days?) to find the children fast asleep. Delena watches her son and husband interact, her anger of a minute ago nearly forgotten.

"A good morning to you, Edric." Stannis is kneeling to be at his level, a sight rare enough to soften even the lines of Clarisse’s face. "I trust you’re behaving. I’ve heard only the best from Maester Cressen."

Edric gives a confident nod. Everything about Delena’s eldest boy is _confident_. And he’s big enough, now, that she can no longer take him in her arms, the way she used to. He’s almost five, with the look of almost nine, his father’s jaw and his mother’s ears, blue eyes that sparkle as bright as Renly’s.

He says: "It’s true, my lord." Edric knows Stannis as _my lord_ , and Delena as _Mommy_ , at least in private. "Messer Cressen has been teaching me about the bannermen of Storm’s End."

" _Maester Cressen_ ," says Clarisse, without skipping a beat.

"Name ten." Edric widens his blue eyes at Stannis. "The bannermen of Storm’s End, name ten. Can you manage that?"

Her son is a Baratheon, rising to any new challenge with fury, indeed. Keeping his chin high, Edric begins: "Buckler." _Helicent’s family_ , if he can even remember that much about somber Heli.

"Go ahead." Arms crossed behind his back, face inexpressive, one could mistake Stannis for a tutor, himself, accepting nothing short of excellence.

Edric appears to count on his fingers, very shortly. Then: "Selmy. Caron, Dondarrion, Connington..."

"You’re only remembering the map, Edric. Name a house from the coast."

"Baratheon. Us." Edric’s eyes shine bright.

Delena chuckles, merrily; Stannis doesn’t, saying: "Clever. What of your grandmother’s family?"

"House Estermont." How many times had Delena, Renly, even King Robert promised to bring the children swimming near Greenstone? Enough for Edric to remember, and _demand_ they go on every sunny day.

They never had, of course. Not yet, anyway.

"And your other grandmother?"

Edric gives Delena a furtive glance. He doesn’t know -- how could he, when good Cressen is barely covering the Reach, past the Brightwater? Tyrell, Hightower, Florent. Edric knows of the wealthy and powerful, but not much else. He makes his best effort: "House Weathers."

"Wrong." There might be the shadow of a timid smile, at the corner of Stannis’s mouth, or it might be the light.

"Winters, then?"

"Wrong." Definitely the light. Edric appears positively miserable.

"Wythers, Ed," Delena provides, helpfully, prompting Stannis to glare and Septa Clarisse to sigh, because _The boy’s won, once more_. "Bethany Wythers, and she would have loved you very much."

What little freckles dust Edric’s face, and Delena’s own, come from the Lady Beth, and might be the only thing Delena can even remember her mother by. It’s enough. If she ever birthed a second daughter, then maybe… _Bethany Baratheon_ has a nice ring to it.

Edric frowns. "So where is Bethany Winters, then?" And Septa Clarisse’s mouth is forming a perfect _O_ , but then arrives Samwell, running down the corridor -- that is, as best as the boy can run.

He’s looking the perfect Baratheon ward, with his doublet of darkest yellow, almost gold, seemingly fading away on a vest and breeches of pale gray. There’s a stag on his chest, and he wears it proudly. He turned nine recently, and Delena likes the changes in him, how Sam brightened up, taking his lessons with Edric, allowed to be more like himself than he ever could, back at Hornhill. She’s barely heard from Melessa, since he moved here, which is… good? Delena had feared Randyll Tarly might show up in King’s Landing, take his son away.

What’s troubling, this morning, is the look on Sam’s face. He’s red, maybe from the effort, but also from something else. He comes to a halt some feet away, awkwardly, then inches a bit closer, nodding to Edric and the septa, bowing to Stannis.

He says: "There’s a messenger from the Lord Hand looking for you, my lord Stannis. Says the matter is most urgent, he does. Says..."

"Take a breath, Sam," Delena says, but already Stannis is on the move, leaving Edric and the noble houses around Storm’s End behind. A shadow crosses the boy’s face, but soon disappears. "Lord Stannis is dealing with the messenger, now. Come with us, Sam. We can have cakes, and you can listen to Shireen’s new song."

"It’s very pretty," Edric chimes in, as his father promptly disappears around the corner.

 

-*-

 

Samwell’s _messenger_ is actually some arrogant youth by the name of Waymar Royce, taller already than some grown men, who half-bows before presenting Stannis with a wrinkled letter he’d kept in his breast pocket.

And then he doesn’t go away. "Was there something else?"

The boy gives a shrug. A shrug! "My lord Arryn is expecting your answer, my lord."

But Stannis discovers there isn’t much to answer to. On the parchment, in black ink, is written a single word: _No_. It’s enough to make his jaw clench, his stomach turn, almost.

Waymar Royce glares. He’s unaware of what just transpired; what _has_ transpired, in the year since the birth of Steffon.

Steffon Baratheon, the crippled son of the King’s ugly brother; Steffon Baratheon, with his black hair and the strength of his bones, even the broken ones. The jaw, already, the nose… He was a Baratheon, through and through. He even had the purple eyes of House Targaryen, the purple eyes of Stannis’s own grandmother. It had angered the King, but it’s the Queen whom Stannis had been watching.

He’d watched more than he liked. He’d watched more than was proper, watched Cersei and her children, golden-haired with the Lannisters’s green eyes, and he’d wondered. Wondered, and then deemed himself mad.

No -- not mad. Unreasonable. Not every son resembled his father. Targaryens had produced children with dark hair, children with Dayne or Martell or Blackwood heritage. The opposite wasn’t as common.

He’d gone to Jon Arryn with his doubt and his uneasy feeling. Jon Arryn, a man he didn’t even _like_. The man had more than enough sense, of course, but it’d been his job to make a decent man of Robert, and instead he’d grown from a cherished, golden boy into a fat, whimsical king. Everything about his children was golden, though. But now Arryn was turning him away, Arryn was saying _No_. Why?

"Your lord should expect a visit, Royce. This very hour."

Another bow, a fast escape down the empty corridor, and Stannis is left alone with Arryn’s letter. He considers heading back for the Maidenvault, taking some measure of strength from Delena’s smiles and chatter, but it would only make his resolve falter. He needed to confront Arryn; after him, he needed to confront Robert. One way or another, before the new month was out. Before the Queen became pregnant with another child, before she made a fool of Robert for a fourth time. The old man be damned, it had to happen.

They’d visited a brothel. A _brothel_ , and for a week after Stannis had feared word might somehow reach Delena, and that he’d need to manage this new crisis. It hadn’t; Delena spent her days with the children, with young Tarly and the Lady Lysa, who grew fatter with child by the day. And Jon Arryn grew more and more stressed, visibly. And he grew older. A lord of twenty, thirty years with no heir was one thing; a lord of seventy? It was dangerous.

And so they’d visited a brothel, and spoken to some fair-haired whore-woman, holding a dark-haired child (not _dark_ ; Baratheon black, almost like ink). Jon Arryn had offered the woman some gold, had offered the woman a job, for the _merit_ of having birthed what he thought was Robert’s bastard. Gold; a job. It’d made Stannis think.

Then, he’d asked Delena: _That wet nurse, Jynne…_

No -- He’d asked after a _Jeyne_ , but the woman’s name was Jynne. And then: _Did she ever say where she came from?_

 _I don’t know. Jon Arryn found her, you told me so yourself_.

Stannis had been able to ignore the fact that Jon Arryn had placed a former whore of Robert’s into his own household, in the company of his own children, if only because it lent credence to his theory. Night-black hair, they each had night-black hair, Robert’s bastard children, and yet-

Joffrey, Myrcella, and Tommen-

He couldn’t seek Delena’s help, of course. She feared the Queen one day and craved her approval the next; she called Robert a _pig_ in the morning and then cheered him for his bravery at supper, flushed with Arbor red, the memory of her miserable half-year on Dragonstone seemingly forgotten. Five years of marriage, five years at her side, and he couldn’t figure her out. Fickle, inconsistent; Edric had inherited her nature.

Jon Arryn had broken at dinner, one evening, after Delena and the Lady Lysa had retired.

He’d looked at his plate, not at Stannis, and declared: _I fear you are right, my lord. And thus I fear, in turn, for the realm._

 _There’s nothing to fear, my Lord Hand. We are handling this, are we not?_ Stannis had made sure nobody could hear, first. Unpleasant hours spent conversing with prostitutes in the more disgusting areas of King’s Landing had taught him a thing or two, indeed.

Jon Arryn had downed his cup of Arbor red. Truth is often an unpleasant thing. _But so might the Lannisters, my lord, and they have claws._

_So the song goes._

The sharp, long claws of House Lannister, the fury of House Baratheon; such ideas look good on paper, sound nice in song and poem, but they do not win battles, or wars. Men do. Men, weapons, and proof of treason.

Stannis enters the Lord Hand’s chambers in a blur of grey and faded black, only to find the man hunched over ledgers and even more letters. Jon Arryn is alone, and dressed for a day at court, a falcon on his narrow chest. As far as Stannis knows, _King_ Robert is somewhere, passed out drunk. He’s somewhere, siring another bastard, while his treacherous wife-

"Why the sudden change?"

The Hand gives Stannis a puzzled look, then seems to remember arrogant Waymar and the letter. The _No_. Stannis continues: "I thought we’d reached some agreement on this, my lord. I thought you wished to safeguard the realm."

"You are talking rather loudly, Stannis."

"We’re long past the proper time for whispering, _my lord_."

He’s not angry; he’s not. It’s simply a problem that must be dealt with, swiftly and in silence, before it’s allowed to spread, before it’s allowed to further hurt Robert, damage House Baratheon. A lesser man would have dealt with it secretly, in the shadows. A lesser man would have pushed the Queen from a window, smothered the children. An even lesser man, like Cersei’s own father, would have done worse. Stannis knew what men like him were capable of, he knew what _Cersei_ and women like her were capable of. Robert had to be warned.

Arryn neatly arranges his letters in a stack, on his desk, reaching almost higher than he is. "The circumstances are not ideal, my lord."

He’s moved closer, closer than Stannis is comfortable with, smelling dust and soap, the man’s sour breath. But a deaf observer might take it the King’s Hand and the King’s brother are merely discussing the weather, until Stannis declares: "We have the proof we need. More than enough."

Enough proof; ten children, some with golden hair, some with hair of night-black. And Stannis’s own; surely they weren’t alone, surely others had looked at Edric, looked at Joffrey, and wondered. Shireen, even with her scar, was more Baratheon than Myrcella ever could be; Steffon, even with his bad leg, must remind the King of Renly at that age, more than little Tommen. And the eyes! How excitedly Delena marveled over those eyes. If only she’d known what they meant to Stannis.

But Arryn seems to be sinking into himself. "My wife is great with child. Your own wife is here, with your children." The fight with Cersei wouldn’t be a real fight; even then, it wouldn’t spread to Delena’s chambers in the Maidenvault. There was no reason to worry her with it. "Before we inform Robert of what… Before we present him with our proof, we must prepare ourselves."

"We need only convince the King, my lord." Robert controlled everything. City guard, and Kingsguard; once he spoke the order…

The corners of Arryn’s mouth drop, and Stannis knows to expect more opposition. The Hand says: "Such a truth might not be to His Grace’s liking, as you know. He might choose to ignore the proof, he might choose to challenge us, the accusers." _Silence us_. Then: "Whatever happens, the Queen has the right to defend herself. We must be ready for Tywin Lannister’s reaction, of course. And, my lord… I think it might be for the better if the King heard the news from me."

Stannis knows why, at least. The King’s brother, accusing his children of bastardry? Exposing Joffrey and the babes for what they were, by the laws of the realm, would leave Robert with a new heir. That new heir, that brother, couldn’t be the one who made the accusation. At least, not a despised brother.

Renly might have succeeded.

"I wish to wait for the birth of my child, my lord, secure my line. Send my wife back to my seat, warn my bannermen of a threat. Half a year, Stannis. We can have this dealt with in half a year. It gives us time not only to safeguard the realm, but also to protect the ones we love."

"Do you mean for us to pretend we lack this knowledge, my lord? To stand by and turn a blind eye as our King is given horns, by a man of his own Kingsguard?" Ever since he’d found proof, irrefutable proof, Stannis had focused his outrage at Ser Jaime’s broken vows, not at… Why, not at the fact that he was the Queen’s own brother. But such blasphemy would incense Robert, and the High Septon with his Most Devout, and soon enough there would be no more Lannisters in King’s Landing. "Do you mean for me to let my children play with the Queen’s?"

"I mean for you to go home, my lord. Have your children play with Velaryons and Celtigars, away from the city. Leave Dragonstone in the care of your wife, and return only with a fleet, and men. Be without vulnerability."

 _I am without vulnerability_. But the Queen would eat Delena whole and spit her bones out; the Kingslayer would defeat Ser Davos in single combat, and Stannis’s own bannermen were far away. Time… maybe time was indeed needed.

Stannis leaves the Lord Hand with a nod, a bow, and not a word. Curse the man for having the right of it; curse the man for postponing the inevitable. He leaves the Hand white in the face, but has recovered his composure when he goes to find Delena, in the nursery where he left her. In her seat by the window, Shireen in her lap, Samwell Tarly and Perriane Penrose at her feet, Edric reading a book, some feet away, under the watchful gaze of his septa.

Shireen is singing, and giggles happily when she catches sight of him, almost jumping from her mother’s lap. Stannis loves his children, but does not understand why they love him in turn. Shireen, at least -- Edric had stopped giggling and singing and misbehaving in Stannis’s presence very early, something Delena had blamed him for. _The boy is scared of you_ , she’d told him. And she’d used that same excuse, later, when asking him to _Please_ take Samwell Tarly as his ward. _His father is cruel to him_ , she’d begged, _his father is a monster._

Stannis had wondered, then, if Randyll Tarly had ever starved his children, the way-

Something collides with his knees, ink-haired and stone-faced. He doesn’t pick up Shireen until Delena urges him to, waving a bejewelled hand, and it’s difficult to remember why he came here in the first place. They must leave the city, return to Dragonstone, the castle that saw Delena lose her joy, Shireen grow sick.

Shireen kisses his face, _Papa Papa Papa_ , and Stannis can only say: "Septa Clarisse, please bring the children with you on a walk. Have Oakheart follow." The old woman bows and obeys, and Stannis is left with his wife, who has barely stopped humming Shireen’s happy song before he says: "We’re leaving for Dragonstone next week."

Before Delena can ask _why_ , he continues: "I must survey the Royal Fleet, and meet with my bannermen."

"Why? Are we at war?" She rises, smoothes her skirt, wrinkles her brow. "Are the Greyjoys…? The Dornish?"  

"No. We are not at war." That she would even suspect, that she had such a fear… Stannis was _preventing_ a war. He simply could not share that with her.

"Then _why_ , may I please ask? Samwell has barely settled in his room, and -- And Lady Lysa’s time is coming, and I promised her I’d be at her side -- I promised her, my lord. And Steffon, I don’t want him at sea, he’s so young, he might sicken, he might catch… The _disease_ , Stannis, he might..."

"I want us to be together," he says, ignoring the pleading. Ignoring his own memory of Shireen’s greyscale, and Steffon’s difficult birth -- _Crack!_ "It’s important to me, Delena. And time away from the city might do us good."

"I suppose little Sam did say he’d like to visit Dragonstone… But my promise to Lysa is important to _me_ , my lord. I cannot simply abandon her. You may take… -- Why, you may take Edric and Shireen, but not Steffon, my lord, not Steffon. He’s so little, he’d… I want to keep him close to me."

 _Half a year, we can have this dealt with in half a year._ If only he could share his discovery with her... But such a secret would frighten Delena, Stannis knows. He needed her strong for the children, yet now she wanted to stay _here_ , the very city in which his and Jon Arryn’s trap would one day spring. Half a year.

"Take Samwell with you," Delena says. "Take Samwell, and I promise to ride for Rook’s Rest as soon as Lady Lysa’s babe is born, and join you. A shorter trip at sea is better, my lord, I’m sure Maester Cressen would say the same." _Cressen would not oppose me_. But Delena continues: "Only a moon or two, please."

"You would rob Edric of his mother for the benefit of Lysa Tully? Shireen? What about your Samwell Tarly? The boy cares nothing for me; he’s bound to feel lost, without you."

"He’s _our_ Samwell Tarly, dear. Simply… Just… Start acting like the foster father you’re meant to be, yes? And Sammy likes Edric and the septa enough, he won’t be _that_ desperate. Go survey your fleet, spend time with the children. You won’t even notice I’m not there, promise."

He does, on the day of his departure. A week later, with a single night in his wife’s bed, one that had the feeling of ceremony, a practiced ritual. His body had barely touched hers. Because he leaves her behind.

Stannis curses himself for it, later, but Delena wins over him, has the last word _again_ , and he leaves her behind, with fat Lady Lysa and the scheming Queen, with Robert and his old Lord Hand, with Ser Jaime the Kingslayer and the rest of the Kingsguard. Delena kisses his cheek, like a reward for bending to her whim, and watches as his ship pushes away from the harbor and onto the sea, feet soaked in the water, tears already falling, dramatically waving at the children.

But she _promised_ she would stay with Lady Lysa, just as Stannis vowed to himself that he would expose the Queen’s betrayal. And so he must.


	11. Comes to Shove

Delena watches Stannis’s galley disappear over the horizon, carrying her children (and Sam) away from her. She does her best not to weep -- _I wanted this, I promised_ \-- but then does anyway, holding Steffon close to her breast and murmuring how soon they can join them, how Lady Lysa’s babe would be Steffon’s dearest playmate, in time. Steffon himself does little, aside from cooing.

Why follow? Stannis could inspect his fleet alone. He could show Dragonstone to Samwell alone, he could spend time with the children on his own, for once, earn smiles from Edric, laughter form Shireen. It would be good for him! And it would be good for poor, sweet Lady Lysa to have Delena around, when… If… Lysa has been nothing if not _hopeful_ , even after the horrors of the last years, and  Delena has to be the same. Steffon’s dearest playmate, indeed; the Lord Hand’s first living child, a new Arryn. A little bird.

Stannis has been gone for two days when Renly arrives, coming from Storm’s End after nigh a fortnight of hunting in the Kingswood. But he cares little for it, Delena knows, for the hunt and the sport, presenting King Robert with a magnificent boar that was tracked and brought down not by him, but rather by Lady Errol’s cousin. The lady herself is there, alongside nearly a score of Baratheon vassal noblemen and women, people barely older than Renly, who cheer him as the prince of his own merry court.

With him come Lord Buckler, his wife (Heli!), and his four daughters. Lady Berenna, Delena’s almost-lady, has wed the Errol hunter, and wanders the city together with him, away from prying eyes and ears; Lady Alicent, the one whose name had amused Delena (Alicent, Helicent) is also there, dragging along her mostly uncooperative Cafferen husband, a man who’s gaunt everywhere Alicent is plump. And the younger daughters, Elianne and Jayne, follow Renly everywhere he goes, like meowing kittens.

Renly has grown since the last time Delena saw him, around Steffon’s birth. He’s grown, taller and more handsome, the very image of King Robert on the day of Delena’s wedding, if only a bit leaner, clean-shaven, more generous with his smiles and his jokes. He doesn’t seem to mind the entourage of women around him, Bucklers and Grandisons and Mertyns and Wyldes, daughters, sisters and cousins of his bannermen, each thinking most highly of the unbetrothed Lord of Storm’s End. But he’s only fifteen, just a boy, and even though he appears to bask under the attention, Delena is glad to finally get him alone, on the way to her chambers in the Maidenvault, because he’s asked to meet once more with her _Little fighter_.

He relaxes, once they’re away from his court of admirers, men and women both. Even his face is softer, just a bit, the smiles coming more easily, the laughter almost musical, as if he’s no longer pretending. Pretending to like people? He’s always been Stannis’s very opposite, indeed. Delena wonders if he ever had to pretend, with her, or if she’s truly always been his _dear sister_ , his only sister. Her Grace the Queen was never one for such proximity.

Steffon is awake, rolling and kicking around in his crib, purple eyes observing the world around him. Renly’s gasp is audible: "The eyes!" Her poor boy is redeemed in the eyes of the world because of his Valyrian features -- why, his _one_ Valyrian feature, that is.

Delena wonders -- Would purple eyes, bright silver-gold hair excuse Shireen’s ugly scar? Delena can only remember a single Targaryen who bore a scar, but that one was a bastard, and he was a sorcerer who practiced blood magic, they say. Hardly a fine example.

Renly soon leaves in search of Robert. Steffon’s next visitor is none other than Helicent, now the fine, respected _Lady Buckler_ , wife of the lord and step-mother to his loud daughters. Delena cherishes her friendship, of course, but… Why, with Edric and Shireen’s absence, with the distance between her and Stannis, she would rather be with Elarra, benefit from her sunny disposition. But Elarra is on Sweetport Sound, taking care of the daughter she recently birthed for Ser Gawen, the lord’s brother. And she writes often ( _more_ than often, actually). It has to be enough, and so instead Delena embraces her twin, complimenting Helicent’s skin, the newfound shine of her dark hair.

Helicent gives a most unladylike shrug. "Ralph has been taking good care of me, I suppose. And his _daughters_ , Delena… No offense to you, my dear, but I once thought you so very silly. I was terribly wrong. They’re driving me insane."

"Of course they are," teases Delena, remembering some of her Reach upbringing, "they’re _Bucklers_. But I hear you arranged a fine match for Lady Alicent, yes?"

A fine match for her groom, anyway. Cafferen wedding to Buckler was near as fine as Wythers marrying Florent. Or Bar Emmon marrying Buckler, for that matter, but Lord Ralph needed a son. Helicent’s stomach has stayed flat in the past year, but she’s nothing if not dutiful.

Of Alicent’s marriage, Heli says: "I begged Cafferen to drag her away, you mean. And the younger ones, Seven preserve me… I pray our Lord Renly chooses one for his wife, that I may finally have peace under my roof, and stop hearing about him. Constantly."

"Lord Farring has a younger brother," offers Delena, but Heli dismisses the idea with a handwave.

"Let us forget about them. I came here to meet your children, and yet I’m told you sent two of them away!" Thought of Shireen and Ed saddens her; Heli notices, and gives Delena’s hand a gentle squeeze, almost motherly. Sisterly, maybe. "No matter, my dear. Children of such a young age rarely are of any interest. But your Steffon! I most desire to meet him. Elarra has been describing him as Rhaegar Targaryen returned, with his eyes, but of course she’s never met your babe, and we only saw the Prince once. Why, no, twice. There was that horrendous tourney, I suppose, but I was so young."

_Horrendous tourney?!_ Delena had spent the year of the False Spring cooped up in Brightwater Keep with her cousins, dreaming of what the world had to offer, beyond the shores of the Honeywine, what it had in store for her.

_This._ It had _this_ in store for her. Clearly not so bad. _Definitely_ not so bad, when compared to poor Selyse’s fate. Five years, she’d been dead for only five years, but it felt like a lifetime. Maybe because Delena had brushed with death herself, since that day. Maybe because she was older, now, than her Ely would ever be.

"He only has the purple eyes," says Delena. "Because of my husband’s grandmother, of course. She was a princess." And she’s never seen Helicent Bar Emmon marvel at something, but she does appear to marvel at Steffon’s eyes. And his leg… Why, she leaves the leg alone, which is better than Renly saying he might _yet_ become a knight. The boy doesn’t have to become anything; he already _is_. When Heli places a hand on her own stomach, when the silence becomes a bit uncomfortable, Delena readily offers: "I’m to have tea and cakes with Her Majesty this afternoon. Please, do come with me."

"But I wasn’t invited."

"Oh, it’s alright. The Queen agreed to me bringing our Perri, I cannot imagine why she’d refuse you." And maybe Perri wouldn’t even want to come with them, actually; she eyed Renly with as many stars in her eyes as Elianne and Jayne Buckler. "But first, first, let me show you this magnificent bolt of samite my Stannis’s uncle sent for me. Why, I mean, it’s for both of us, one assumes, but Stannis favors black and grey and more black, and it’s this bright color, this shade of… I don’t know, salmon? It’s not exactly pink, no."

It’s the color of sunset over Dragonstone, seen from the room with the Painted Table. It’s the color of the gown Aunt Melara gifted Delena with, the week of her flowering, the one that stopped fitting her after six moons, because her chest filled in. It’s the color of Stannis’s face whenever her fingers brush his, whenever they’re standing close to one another. Not his face, no -- his neck. His face, his eyes, they’ve never betrayed anything of the sort, at least not to Delena, and she has spent _years_ looking for something. What do Robert and young Renly find, on that face? What about good Ser Davos? What about Stannis himself?

"My lady, you’re ridiculous," says Helicent, bringing Delena’s mind away from her unsmiling lord and back to her pink-shaded reality. Heli is only half-smiling, ever the composed lady. She might even have made Stannis a better wife, Delena is thinking, until: "You’re ridiculous, but how I missed you!"

Delena takes it for the compliment it’s probably meant to be, deep down. She and Heli link arms, headed for queenly luncheons, afternoons with Perri and the Lady Lysa, and maybe some hawking with Renly, but without the other Bucklers.

 

-*-

 

Stannis is halfway through his dinner with Lord Velaryon and his new young bride, on Driftmark, when he decides he should have brought Delena with him, dragged her by the hair if need be, the Lady Lysa be damned. It’s not Lysa Tully he’d wed; it’s not Lysa Tully his children screamed for, even the usually agreeable Shireen. It’s not Lysa Tully that Septa Clarisse oft-called her _dear girl_ ; it’s not Lysa Tully, most definitely, that young Laenora Celtigar, now the Lady Velaryon, would have liked to be reunited with.

She’s wearing the sea-green of her new house, seated between the Lord and the lord’s illegitimate brother, the bastard Aurane, a youth of fourteen who inherited both the silver-gold hair and the arrogance of his father. Lord and Lady Velaryon have slightly darker hair, more blonde than silver, and none of them have the purple eyes. A shadow of the House Velaryon of the Conqueror’s time; a shadow of the Old Valyria, with just enough blood shared with House Targaryen for Robert to despise them.

If anything, tonight, Stannis despises the probing. Lady Laenora is saying: "Had we known you were coming, my lord, surely my husband and dear Aurane would have gone hunting. A boar, maybe? A rare sight on Driftmark, to be sure, but our blacksmith and his boys swear they recently sighted a few."

Stannis remembers Delena’s third childbirth, the perilous one. He’d thought of her ladies, as she lay dying, had thought of finding good marriages for them. He’d thought Lady Laenora smart, back then, but now _shrewd_ fit her better. The lady sees much, with those dark blue eyes, dark enough to be called black. Sees much, knows more, and doesn’t talk nearly half enough to even be close to Delena’s level.

Aurane Waters is easily bored, reminding Stannis of Renly, and leaves before dessert is served. Stannis is glad, and wishes Lady Velaryon would leave herself, that he might warn her lord about… What? Threat of impending war? Order him to mobilize his fleet, without Robert’s knowledge? _Half a year_. The Hand requested half a year, and Stannis was inclined to give it to him. The man had been right -- Stannis hated it, but he knew. The Lannisters… He would have sent the children to Pentos if need be, Edric and Shireen and Steffon and Delena, Seven damn her to Hells for not coming with him right away. Maybe he should have warned her of the danger; maybe he should have shared the Queen’s secret with her.

It was a heavy burden.

Stannis prepares to leave Driftmark on the morrow, sending Davos ahead, that he might warn Ser Axell, have Dragonstone prepared for the children. And Delena -- Stannis would send a raven to Delena the very minute he disembarked on Dragonstone, summon her to him, speak of the urgency. As for her fear of bringing Steffon on the water… Why, she could travel for Brightwater Keep if she wanted, so long as she was far away from the Queen, far away from the wrath that would be Robert’s once he found out, far away from the prudent Hand.

She couldn’t be left there, in harm’s way. She couldn’t be trusted with the secret, the burden. She would frighten, she would take pity on the Queen, she would… Stannis wasn’t sure what she would do, but it wouldn’t be good. Mercy no longer had a place in King’s Landing, not since the end of House Targaryen, and most definitely not since the Queen had taken her brother to bed and fathered inbred children she meant to sit on Robert’s throne. Mercy, honor and love, they were Delena’s fancy tales, not for real life.

Not for this world.

 

-*-

 

Delena watches Lady Lysa’s face change into a mask of surprise, then horror and fear, halfway through Her Grace’s luncheon, and is on her feet a second before the screams come. Somebody is calling after her, visibly annoyed -- The Queen? Helicent? --, but Delena takes Lysa’s trembling hand in her own and doesn’t let go, listening as Lysa stammers _It’s not right_ and _It’s so early_ and _It’s happening again_ , enough to make her own eyes tingle with tears.

It’s early, but it might live, and if Stannis had left a bit later… Couldn’t he simply have waited a week, two? She could have gone with him, then, Lysa and her babe safe back here, without having to endure the _look_ he’d shot her, on the bridge of the _Black Betha_ , the icy glare that meant: _I expected better from you._

It’s a scare. A big scare, one that makes Lysa tremble and vomit and cry, but a scare anyway. The Grand Maester is almost dismissive; the Lord Hand comes and goes away, dryly kissing his wife’s brow while Delena is looking away, out the window, at the salmon-pink horizon. Ser Arys is standing outside Lysa’s door, handsome in his white armor, and for a while Delena is able to distract Lysa with tales from the Reach, because Ser Arys is seemingly eager to reminisce about his own childhood, his formidable mother the Lady Oakheart, her seat along the Ocean Road.

And the sky goes from pink to purple to inky-dark, and Lysa is troubled by no more pain.

Just a big scare.

Ser Arys is walking Delena back to Maegor’s Holdfast, where the King is housing Renly and his merry entourage, because she knows for a fact that Helicent won’t be asleep, not at this hour, and her nerve-racking afternoon with Lysa surely must be rewarded with a peaceful evening, spiced wine and one-sided gossip. Ser Arys is pleasantly chatty, and they encounter first Renly, then Lord Buckler and his pack of cheerful daughters, then Perriane, who spent the day following around her Penrose relatives. One is Renly’s castellan back in Storm’s End; the others have names and faces that blur in Delena’s mind and memory. There is a Perra, Perriane’s grandmother, who discusses marriage with the poor girl, seemingly blind to her grimaces. Once more, Delena hears Renly’s name.

They encounter Prince Joffrey, up from his bed after hours, demanding to know where Edric has gone. And on he goes; Edric with the big ears, Shireen with the ugly scar, Steffon with the no-good leg. If Ser Arys notices Delena is digging her fingers into his arm, he says nothing, instead gently nudging her away from the Prince, even as the Queen and Ser Jaime appear down the corridor.

Delena catches the stink first, a second or two before they run into the King. He’s got Ser Boros and Ser Meryn with him, both silent and unbothered by the King’s unsteady step, the scent of wine on his breath, the japes. Delena hopes Robert turns right, runs into his wife and bothers her, instead; but His Grace takes a left, and soon enough he’s calling after them.

"Delena! _LENA_!" Ser Arys comes to a halt; Delena considers dragging him behind her for a while, but he’s got that look on his face that isn’t unlike that of a beaten dog, or a child eager to please. She decides not to blame him, instead steeling herself for an encounter with drunk Robert, who is achingly different from sober Robert. "Lena, why d’you leave dinner?"

It takes her a moment, but then she reasons -- the Queen’s luncheon. Not exactly dinner, but close enough. "Lady Lysa, my king. We feared her labor had begun."

Ser Arys takes a step back, once the King is close enough, and Delena is feeling surprisingly naked. Robert takes her arm, not gently. Delena realizes it’s the very first time she’s alone with him, without Stannis to glare or Her Grace to scowl. And it’s the very first time he’s touching her, since her bedding ceremony. _I wanted a peek, I got a peek_. Is that what he’d told Stannis? Something like it.

Something that had made her feel terrible back then, and terrible now.

Robert finally notices Ser Arys, and roars out an order: "Oakheart! Oakheart, boy, go make sure the Queen remembered to put Joff to bed. I’m tired of hearing them, I am." Delena cannot decently picture Ser Arys _making sure_ Cersei did anything, but the knight goes anyway, with one nod for her.

Delena is left with the King, his eyes wine-dark. He says: "I had to listen to Cersei rant on and on about how you respect Lysa more than you respect her, on and on. "

_That’s almost correct_. "Of course not, Your Grace. It’s just -- I promised Lady Arryn I would be with her, when the babe came."

"The babe!" The King positively roars. It startles Delena, but not Trant and Blount. The first is staring into the distance, the second is staring at her chest. "I’ve known _Lady Arryn_ since before she was that, and she’s had ten babes, and they’re dead."

It’s the wine making him unkind, Delena knows, but it doesn’t help. She means to inch away from Robert, but his grip on her arm tightens. Where is the Queen? Maybe she’d hear, if Delena spoke loud enough. She’d get angry with the King for getting drunk, and Delena could slip away unnoticed, go back to her chambers and finally go to sleep. Lady Lysa would be in a better mood, come the morrow, and maybe Delena could introduce her to Helicent’s step-daughters. They would be impressed, no doubt, and the flattery would cheer up Lysa.

But first, she had to get away from the King.

"You’re hurting me," Delena says, and that appears to give Robert pause. She doesn’t know how to deal with men like him… but she knew how to deal with Rhea’s vanity and Ely’s sour mood, back home. "I promised Lady Buckler I would meet with her, Your Grace. Her daughters have asked for tales of your many adventures."

Step-daughters, actually, but Robert is deep enough in his wine that he doesn’t catch the mistake, instead grinning like a boy. He releases her arm; it takes Delena a considerable effort not to hide it behind her back, or rub the spot where the King’s fingers closed like claws. Robert says: "Allison Bar Emmon and her old husband?"

_Helicent_.

"Can’t love each other as much as they pretend, I don’t think. Nobody ever does. Just look at you." She remembers hearing this before. _Wasting such a pretty woman on Stannis. Unthinkable, Selmy, unthinkable_. "I’m watching you, Lena. I could give you what you want."

She decides to simply walk past him, head for Helicent’s chambers, pray he doesn’t ask his Kingsguard to go after her. What manner of King would do that? What manner of man?

Robert doesn’t say anything, but he does cry out after her. "I could give you better-looking children, Lena! DELENA! Don’t you walk away from your king!"

That’s when they hear the Queen. She’s yelling, and in-between the yelling come the subdued, whispered answers of Ser Arys. "Put my son to bed? Put my son to bed?! Your king couldn’t find the bedchambers of his own children even if we filled them with shaven whores! Drunken sot, bloated fool, where is he? You! Ser Arys, go _make sure_ he doesn’t choke on his own vomit, would you?" Then she appears, a terror in red, unbound hair like molten gold in the light of a hundred torches. Ser Jaime is at her side, and tonight he’s wearing a cloak of Lannister red, not the white cloak of the Kingsguard. The sight of them is something else, truly; the sight of them makes the King forget about her to start yelling at his wife instead.

It might be the worst fight Delena has ever witnessed; it might also be her best chance to leave unnoticed. She does, slipping past a bored-looking Ser Meryn, who doesn’t give her a second glance. Is that a smirk, on his face? Did men of his ilk enjoy that kind of spectacle? It’s not that far to Helicent’s room, and Delena can hear the shouting even after walking down a few corridors. They appear to be moving, mayhap toward Robert’s own chambers, or the Queen’s. Delena hopes the King doesn’t… Delena hopes the King does nothing.

Ser Arys catches up with her just as Helicent opens her door… and then slams it shut, because she’s only wearing her dressing gown.

"Lady Baratheon," Ser Arys says, "Lady Buckler. My lady, are you planning on spending the night here? Do you need me to escort you to your chambers in the Maidenvault?"

"With _them_ lurking around? No, ser. Thank you, ser. Do you mean to guard this door? I’m telling you, ser, I plan on bolting it shut, should I hear any more screaming." There’s a trembling in her body that she’s only just noticing, a drop of sweat trickling down her spine. The King wouldn’t have let her go, if the Queen hadn’t returned. "If you would, ser, go watch over my son. There’s a storm coming, and storms frighten him."

"Ser Preston is guarding your chambers, my lady."

Preston Greenfield, meant to watch over her boy as the storm made him whimper and scream? Splendid. Delena turns her back to Ser Arys, knocking on Helicent’s door once more. "Heli? I’ve come for tea."

"Tea? But I’m only wearing my dressing gown!"

"You saw me give birth!"

Helicent opens the door, and Delena closes it behind her -- bolting it shut, indeed -- just in time. Robert and Cersei are walking down the hallway, and the shouting match between them has escalated to something more akin to a real, actual fight. Helicent does a good enough job of pretending to prepare tea, but Delena presses her ear on the door. Has Ser Arys gone away? She can hear a knight on the other side of the door, but there can be no more than one. Ser Jaime? With his cloak of Lannister red, ever his sister’s protector, watching in silence as King Robert berates her?

"Does this happen often?" Helicent wonders. And from her furtive glance over her shoulder, Delena notices that she poured herself a cup of wine, not tea. Yes, maybe wine is what’s needed. "Ralph told me about some… rumors, but I never expected..."

Delena, who doesn’t know what to say, instead listens some more. There’s shouting, swearing, screaming; they must be at the end of the hallway, now, where stairs can bring one up to another set of rooms, or down to ground level, where sleep the septas and nurses of those children sleeping above.

There’s a sound, like thunderclap. There’s a sound, a crash, like a body hitting the ground.

"He struck the Queen," Delena whispers, and Helicent’s own whispers sound like: _I knew we should have stayed in fucking Bronzegate_. "Heli, I don’t like this. I can’t hear anything."

She can, but what she hears doesn’t make any sense. There’s what could be a sword unsheathed, what could be another blow, what could be Robert saying, _You wouldn’t dare_. There’s the rustling of fabric, a scream from the Queen, a scream from the King, and the sound of something… tumbling down, yes. Down the stairs? Down the stairs, yes, fast and faster and then nothing.

Nothing, until Ser Jaime says: "Seven Hells, Cersei."


	12. He Flew

Back when Selyse was sick, a lifetime ago, Delena would sit by her bedside and ramble the days away. She could spend nigh an hour talking about the stupidest, most insignificant thing, because it calmed her. It wasn’t for Ely’s sake; it should have been, but it wasn’t, and soon enough Ely was dead and everyone was calling Delena a woman -- a girl no longer -- and speaking of her duty to House Florent, her soon-arriving bridegroom.

Stannis Baratheon seldom had any place in his life for nervous rambling, but Stannis is gone, for now, and Delena has never felt so alone, standing in the shadow of the Iron Throne. She’s wearing a dark blue gown Elianne Buckler had in her luggage, but it’s tight at the chest, enough to make her breathing shallow, and overly long at the sleeves, with the skirt dragging behind her whenever she moves, more than is adequate. It makes her feel naked and silly, but nobody is looking at her. They’re looking at the Iron Throne and the boy sitting on it, with his little shoes that hang two feet above the ground, a crown that would positively come to rest on his shoulders if he didn’t hold it on his knees instead.

Joffrey Baratheon, the First of His Name, six years of age. Delena focuses her eyes on the deep red of his elegant doublet, on his little shoes, on the yellow gemstones of the crown in his lap. A stag’s golden, splendid antlers, but it won’t fit properly on Joffrey’s head for another ten years, at best.

To Delena’s right is Renly, and she’s never seen the boy with such a despondent look. Round shoulders, chin held lower than usual. He’s mourning for Robert in a way Delena knows Stannis won’t. Does he know already? Back on Dragonstone, does he know? Is he planning on coming back?

He must, surely. Joffrey would need help from his Baratheon uncles, Joffrey would need help from the good Lord Hand.

To Delena’s left is Helicent, to whom Delena has spent the last twelve hours repeating _The King tripped, he tripped, he tripped_. It seems to be the general consensus, even within the Kingsguard. Ser Meryn and Ser Boros and Ser Jaime and Ser Arys had been there, the lot of them, and now they stand at the feet of the Iron Throne, guarding Joffrey. His mother is at his side, and it’s the first time Delena sees a smiling widow. Or any widow, really.

Cersei Lannister isn’t wearing black, or gray, or even dark blue. She’s wearing a vivid green, an emerald to match her eyes, with her tresses loose over her shoulders and down her back, like waves of molten gold on a green beach. And her face -- this isn’t the face of a woman in mourning. But once more, to herself, Delena says: _The King tripped_. Once she’d repeated it enough, it would become true. And once it became true, she would return to Stannis and her sweet babes, and maybe she would never leave Dragonstone again, but she wouldn’t mind that much. Oh, no, she truly wouldn’t mind, really.

They’re a very appealing picture, the Queen Mother and her little son, the Kingsguard surrounding them. From afar, at least. After talking for some minutes of regency and the prosperous future of Joffrey’s rule, Cersei summons the King’s brothers to pay the King homage at the feet of his throne. But only Renly is there, and Delena only notices that he’s been tugging at her sleeve, urging her to follow him, once she’s already walking behind him, heart skipping every other beat, something dreadfully cold in the pit of her stomach. But Cersei doesn’t look menacing, or even angry, and once more Delena must remember: _The King tripped_.

 _Seven Hells, Cersei!_ She remembers this, remembers the silence that followed and how she and Helicent didn’t breathe a word for the longest time, until Delena worked up the courage to unbolt the door and peek outside. The corridor was empty, and she’d walked slowly, unsteady as if on ice, to where the King had fallen down -- tripped, he tripped. That’s when she had seen them, at the bottom of the stairs, gathered around the King’s body like white crows; the Kingsguard, with Ser Barristan kneeling next to Robert. The King’s neck was bent at the wrong angle, like his right arm, but the dark pool next to his body was of wine, not blood. Delena had seen Ser Meryn’s cruel mouth, had seen Ser Arys kneeling in prior, had seen Ser Jaime hold the Queen -- she’d wept, she was crying, the King had _tripped_. And then she’d fled, before she could be seen.

It makes her feel silly, now. Silly, and nervous, and cold. Cersei beckons them closer, she and Renly, and they climb one step, then another. Little Joffrey, on his throne, eyes his uncle with his Lannister-green eyes. Is he… amused? He’s so very young; surely, he mustn’t realize his father is dead.

But then: "My father is dead, and I am king." So much for that.

Delena takes a second or two, enough to convince herself that Edric and Shireen would cry, if told of her death. But once that’s done, she remembers more than Robert simply tripping; she remembers him screaming and threatening and bellowing, she remembers the cat from the kitchens, she remembers catching glimpses of purple and green on the Queen’s skin, she remembers the day Joffrey lost his front teeth.

The Queen gives her son an encouraging nod. He continues: "Uncle Renly, Aunt Delena, I want you to stay with us in the city. Uncle, until your bannermen can travel here for my coronation. Lady Delena, until..." He’s only a child, he’s only six years old; Joffrey’s eyes dart to his mother.

"Until," Cersei says pleasantly, "the King’s good uncle Stannis returns and resumes his tenure as the most cherished member of the Small Council. Until he returns the Royal Fleet he brought with him to Dragonstone, to so generously inspect and restore. Until his children -- your children, Lady Baratheon, the King’s beloved cousins, are back within the safety of the Red Keep." _Within reach_ , Cersei doesn’t say, but it echoes in Delena’s head anyway. She remembers how pressed Stannis was to leave, remembers the dinners with the Lord Hand, and wonders.

More than wondering, she also fears.

She reaches for Renly’s hand, when they go back to his bannermen. If only tentatively; he doesn’t take it, anyway. Maybe he’s more like Stannis than she ever suspected. Maybe his grief is something he means to keep for himself. But he’s only fifteen, just a boy. But then, Delena was a mother at sixteen. A woman grown. Instead of Renly’s hand, then, she takes Helicent’s, just in time; the large doors are thrown open, and in comes Jon Arryn, who… comes to a sudden halt, gazing upon the assembled crowd with unmasked surprise, and then on King Joffrey, his mother and his Kingsguard.

Helicent whispers, her chin resting on Delena’s shoulder: "The right hand doesn’t know what the left is up to, it would appear." Delena gives a sharp nod, does her best to catch Renly’s eyes, but her goodbrother is looking between the Hand and the Iron Throne, frowning. Helicent says: "This is bad."

Jon Arryn makes his way toward the throne, stopping only when Ser Meryn and Ser Jaime take a step forward. This is bad, indeed, although Delena isn’t sure what exactly she’s expecting, until the Lord Hand clears his throat and says: "How moving, Prince Joffrey, to behold you upon your father’s throne. And yet, I’d hoped that I would be invited to your first audience." There’s a murmur, washing over the crowd like a cold wave.

Cersei Lannister doesn’t look cold. And she doesn’t murmur, instead calling down to Lord Arryn: "You’re mistaken, my lord. Joffrey is our king, now."

"Of course--"

But the Queen continues, and the cold wave comes again: "We meant to give you some time with your wife, the Lady Lysa. Her troubled pregnancy concerns us deeply." _I’ve known Lady Arryn since before she was that, and she’s had ten babes, and they’re dead._ "But, my lord, since you cannot seem to know a prince from a king, there is another matter."

Joffrey, wearing his father’s crown like an oversized bracelet, says: "You’ve given my father the best part of your life, my lord. I want you to return to your beloved Vale with your family." Delena knows a speech when she hears one.

"Tywin Lannister," Helicent whispers in Delena’s ear, just as Cersei gives her son another look, encouraging. Loving, motherly.  

And, indeed, Joffrey continues with: "My grandfather, Lord Tywin of House Lannister, is to replace you as Hand of the King and Protector of the Realm." Such a little boy, with his silly voice, speaking a command that shatters the ground of his Throne Room like a lightning bolt. The crowd seems to part away from Jon Arryn; Delena even notices some noblemen turning away from him, looking down. "Mother is to act as my regent until my grandfather arrives."

Jon Arryn seems undeterred, even as the Kingsguard makes another step toward him, as if to push him back. "What about your father’s death, King Joffrey?" It has the feeling of a challenge; the man turns away from the Iron Throne, but few dare to look at him. He says: "It was your father’s desire that _I_ serve as your regent, my king, and I mean to keep this promise."

Jaime Lannister places his gauntleted hand over the pommel of his sword.

"My beloved husband, your king, had many weaknesses." Cersei Lannister wasn’t made to be a widow, not with the green silk of her gown, not with such lustrous hair, not with that glowing smile. "He saved us from the wretched tyranny of the Mad King, yet… He could not save himself from the hold wine had upon him. His death is a tragedy." _The King tripped, he tripped, he tripped_. "May the Father judge him justly."

"May the Father judge him justly," the crowd echoes, with varying degrees of clarity. Delena isn’t convinced Robert is meeting with the Father. The Warrior, mayhap, or whatever awful creatures wander the Seven Hells.

"You let my husband grow fat and complacent," says Cersei, but Delena can only look at the Kingsguard, at the steel. Only Ser Barristan hasn’t moved, only he seems uncomfortable. "Return to your tower, my lord, before it becomes Lord Tywin’s. And then, return to your Vale. We must have new blood, for a new king. My poor, good Robert wouldn’t have wanted for you, a man he loved as he did his own father, to sweat in the heat of King’s Landing any longer. You might sicken."

"In that man’s shoes," says Heli, "I would ride hard for the Eyrie, then have my people catapult me over the Gates of the Moon to save time."

"His shoes wouldn’t fit you," says Delena, head swimming. The crowd is thick with heat, and suddenly, she’s cursing herself for staying behind, cursing herself for venturing out, last night, and looking down the stairs, cursing Elianne Buckler and her flat chest. "That poor old man..."

What can Jon Arryn do, Delena wonders? Not much, it appears, and she watches as he bows to Cersei’s whim. He removes the brooch on his doublet, the silver hand, and gives it to Ser Jaime, when the golden knight moves forward to collect it. It makes Delena feel awkward, standing there and watching the old man walk away, and it’s the same kind of shame she felt whenever Rhea mocked Selyse.

And yet, when Jon Arryn gives her a short nod of acknowledgment, Delena cannot bring herself to nod back, not when the Queen, it appears, is looking directly at her.

She misses Stannis. He would understand what’s even supposed to be happening, right now, and maybe they could follow Lord Jon back to his Eyrie for a while, stay away from King’s Landing, breathe fresh air. She wouldn’t even mind having to be catapulted over a mountain, if only to escape the Queen’s scrutiny.

Delena hopes for a fast escape back to her chambers, when Cersei has the room cleared, but the Queen is calling her name before she’s even reached the doors. A dozen noblewomen scatter at Cersei’s approach, mothers and wives and daughters of Renly’s smallest bannermen. The Buckler daughters are positively running away, whispering about the Lord Hand -- the former Hand, that is, with Heli shepherding them out the doors like she would a flock of sheep.

"Gentle little Delena." It’s a far cry from _Lady Baratheon_ , but Delena truly doesn’t mind. She has spent the last night preparing to say _Yes_ to everything the Queen asked of her, has spent twelve hours repeating _The King tripped_ and _I was asleep_ , and looking for a black gown. Cersei says: "Delena, how I wish your husband were here. My son, the King, has need for trusted, loyal people around him."

"Of course, Your Grace, of course. The -- My -- Ser Ryam, my uncle, my father’s brother, he tripped. I mean, he was killed -- He was riding a horse, and he meant to jump, but the horse didn’t jump. My uncle did, though. He flew. He tripped. He..."

How bright the Queen’s smile is! Almost like it was during her first days in the city, back when she was pregnant with Edric, and thought Cersei Lannister would become her greatest friend. What had changed? Stannis, Stannis had changed. He was plotting something, and he wouldn’t let Delena be privy to it, and now she had to be alone in King’s Landing, alone with the memory of how Robert _tripped_ , and she had to know exactly what the Queen wanted to hear, and then say just that.

Cersei says: "Delena, my dear, why don’t you come and dine with me, tonight? By then, I’m sure, our raven is bound to have reached your husband, and he may even have written back. Our dear Renly must need his brother -- his last brother."

"I’m sure -- I’m convinced -- Stannis is on his way, my queen. He... He cares about Joffrey, Your Grace, he won’t let him down. Whatever you may need, my queen, if there’s anything I can do to ease your suffering..." _Seven Hells, Cersei!_ "You must let me know. Your family is my family. We’re sisters."

Cersei smiles, and for a terrifying moment, it doesn’t remind Delena of sunshine, but of fire, a flashing of teeth. "Actually, I know just the place for you, Lena. Our good Lady Lysa must be so very frightened, to lose her king, just as she almost lost her baby. Please, for me, go make sure Lord and Lady Arryn want for nothing. Then we can dine together, you and I. You could even bring the Lady Buckler, the one you invited to my luncheon."

If there’s any bite in that last sentence, Delena misses it, happy to have something to do, somewhere to be. She bows, smiles, bows once more, and is on her way out into the yard and back into the busy Tower of the Hand -- Tywin Lannister’s tower, now -- in minutes. Lord Arryn’s household is… Delena would mayhap compare them with bees, after the hive is kicked. She’s able to find the lady, though, sitting by her window, a hand resting on her swollen belly.

"This wouldn’t be happening," Lysa says, "if Jon had simply brought Petyr down from Gulltown, like I’ve been suggesting for a year!"

Delena is about to ask: _Who’s Petyr?_ , but then, from the yard outside, echoes the sound of steel clashing on steel. Men shout, and someone runs down the hallway outside Lysa’s chambers. Lysa means to rise, face white as chalk, but then she can only sink back into her seat, clutching her sides. "Delena, what’s that?"

"Nothing." The fighting draws nearer, more people run down the corridor, doors are slammed, men shout. "It’s nothing, Lysa, surely it’s nothing. Maybe -- maybe a horse escaped? Surely."

She’s about to say it again when the door opens, but it’s not Jon Arryn, or any of Jon Arryn’s men. It’s Jaime Lannister, with his golden armor, his red cloak and his sword, a grin sharper than any blade on his face. He bows, rather mockingly, but Delena truly doesn’t mind, not while he’s also holding a sword, and stepping into the room, and then asking:  "Afternoon, ladies. Have you seen the former Lord Hand?"

Delena isn’t sure about that -- was he running up and down the hallway, just a minute ago? But she could be mistaken. What there’s no mistaking, though, is what the screams coming up from the yard mean. The screams, the steel on steel, and the sound of Lysa’s waters breaking and hitting the floor. There’s no mistaking any of that, really: danger and danger, then childbirth, which is also danger.

For lack of a seat, Delena has to sit on the ground, when her knees positively give up on her.

 

-*-

 

Stannis watches Dragonstone grow bigger and bigger on the horizon, pale beach and dark castle. It’s midday, yet moderately cold because of the wind, but Axell Florent has water up to his knees, gesticulating wildly, and it occurs to Stannis that nothing could beat the _Black Betha_ to Dragonstone, except maybe a raven. And who might need to send a raven to Dragonstone, if not Delena?

It must be from Delena, or _about_ Delena. Stannis clenches his teeth, and pictures his wife as he last saw her, weeping on the shore, holding Steffon. Steffon, with his little yellow coat. Did something happen--

Davos’s boy Matthos is the first to hear it. He says: "Lord Axell is shouting at us, my lord. Ser Axell, I mean. Should we get the rowboat?"

"Do it," says Davos.

His sons move as one, and soon enough the rowboat is parting the waves, fast enough for Stannis to feel as if they’re flying above the water. His clothes are drenched when they shore up, though. Ser Axell comes running, breathing ragged and red in the face, and Stannis is finally able to make out what the man has been saying: "The King is dead! The King is dead! My lord, Stannis, the King is dead!"

Stannis pictures assassins, in the very first instant after Ser Axell is done speaking, bent in half, catching his breath. He pictures a ship cracking like an egg and disappearing below the waves, then manages to ask: "How?"

Assassins, it must be. Assassins, but Robert would have gone down fighting. He might even have taken one, maybe two with him. But Ser Axell, panting, says: "He broke his neck falling down a flight of stairs, my lord. They say he was drunk, and tripped, falling to his death."

How pathetic, how lacking. And how very timely, indeed. _Half a year_ , Jon Arryn had coaxed half a year from Stannis, but now Robert was dead, not half a bloody week after he left the city? _He tripped_.

Nonsense. Robert had spent the last ten years drunk beyond reason, and had not _tripped_ once. He’d won his two bloody wars half-passed out.

"Who’s _they_?"

"Her Grace--" Ser Axell struggles to follow after them, when Stannis and Davos and Davos’s wide-eyed boys start walking, flattening sand underfoot on the way toward Dragonstone proper. "Her Grace the Queen, my lord, the Queen Regent. She demanded your return to King’s Landing, my lord, with your children. You’re to sit on Joffrey’s Small Council, the way you sat on Robert’s."

They walk past dragons made of darkest stone, and only after he’s managed to compose himself and unclench his jaw does Stannis turn back, toward Dragonstone’s harbor, to make sure the _Black Betha_ has docked safely. Below, Clarisse the septa is disembarking with the children, Randyll Tarly’s son in tow. Delena should be there -- he should have gotten Delena away from the city, should have insisted.

They’re met with Cressen, inside, and Stannis has to look upon the old man’s face, remember that for his flaws, Robert was a boy, once, a boy Cressen brought into the world.

Stannis wishes he knew what to say, wishes he shared the maester’s grief. But instead: "Have you word from the Hand?" Jon Arryn would be forced to move, now, half a year be cursed.

But, as Cressen is quick to share, there’s been no raven aside from Cersei Lannister’s. How? Jon Arryn couldn’t possibly be planning to stick to his original plan, now. With Robert dead, with Joffrey on the Iron Throne, with the Lannisters back to full power… With Delena alone in the city, and Renly young, unprepared for the wars to come.

Stannis would summon his men. His own men, Celtigar and Velaryon and Sunglass and young Bar Emmon on Sharp Point, houses that would stand ready. They would have enough men to man the Royal Fleet and take King’s Landing, when Jon Arryn called upon him, when he saw that his wish to wait had always been sheer folly. Maybe Arryn would send Delena and his own wife away, maybe to Rosby or south to Massey’s Hook, away from the Lannisters. Maybe he already had.

That would be for the best.

Cressen mourns for Robert, but he writes the letters anyway, to Bar Emmon and the others, to Stannis’s Estermont kin and those among Storm’s End banners he knows would never turn, Buckler and Caron, Swann and Tarth. Not a call to arms, not just yet, but a reminder, a warning. He couldn’t expose the Queen’s treachery, not while she had Delena in her clutches -- her claws, actually, but he could be prepared.

In the room with the Painted Table, Davos to his right and Cressen to his left, Stannis moves a wooden fleet into Blackwater Bay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I felt bad about never leaving beginning/ending notes so... For what it's worth, I've now decided that Delena is a Pisces ♓  
> 'But there's no zodiac in Westeros' Shhhhh

**Author's Note:**

> July 5 -- At first, I wanted to make this a one-shot. That didn't happen. I've come to care a lot about this story and I know where I want it to endd; I also know that I'd like to go back and fill in some gaps, add some missing scenes, explore some concepts and relationships more in detail. I've edited some of the chapters A Lot in the past, but now I feel like a fresh start is what's best. So I'm gonna take what I already have, improve upon it, write this story to completion and, once that's done, repost it as its own new work and update it weekly. I think. Probably. 
> 
> Thank you so, so much to everyone who's been following this, and don't think I've forgotten about these characters. There will be many cliffhangers, grinding teeth, and oblivious Delena moments in the future. <3


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